there. that's better.

oooh, posting about cake when I can SMELL dinner baking and I'm starving! Whose idea of a good time was this?

Anyhow, here they are, all finished in their glory: A whole container of vanilla-caramel cake balls. I found the candy-melt-coating a little too sweet, but I suspected that the birthday girl wouldn't mind. (she didn't)

However, just because she DID write me after I'd purchased all the ingredients and started on the vanilla cake balls to let me know that she can officially eat chocolate now, I pulled some large chunks of chocolate cake out of the freezer. It's the Old Fashioned Double Chocolate Layer Cake (I'll link it later, I think I have before anyway) at www.epicurious.com that is, hands-down, the best chocolate cake recipe of all time. It's amazing! I made it as part of a birthday cake last summer, only I baked it in round pans and cut the final cake to a square. So I bagged up chunks of the cake and froze it, figuring I'd get a dessert out of it at some point. (and it's just too good to let go to waste!)

In an ode to my winter experimentation with salted chocolate caramels, I did the chocolate cake balls up with caramel, white candy-melt-coating, and a dusting of Hawaiian red sea salts. I didn't mind the coating with these so much - the strong chocolate flavour really grounds the sweetness, and the salt was just the right touch.

All in all, easier than I'd expected. I'll have to do this again sometime. In fact, I think I have more cake in the freezer...