Red Velvet Cake Truffles

Here’s something I put together as a Valentines Day treat (any boys reading out there – it’s on the 14th Feb!).  These Red Velvet Cake truffles are delish – the inside combines Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese on the inside which works perfectly as Red Velvet cake is traditionally iced with cream cheese icing (check out Courtenay’s Red Velvet Cake recipe post).  On the outside I’ve coated the truffles with pink chocolate; you could buy candy melts or colour white chocolate with gel colouring.  I think they would  look just as great with dark chocolate too.

1 ¼ cups flour
1 cup sugar
¾ tablespoon cocoa
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
¾ cup oil
½ cup buttermilk
½ tablespoon vinegar
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
25ml liquid red food colouring (less if using gel colouring)
200g cream cheese
375g chocolate (I used white chocolate melts and added in gel colouring to get the pink)
sprinkles for decoration

Preheat oven to 180°C.  Grease a 20cm cake pan.
Lightly whisk the eggs in a medium-large bowl.  Add the remaining liquid ingredients and mix together with whisk or whisk attachment on an electric mixer until blended.
Sift the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.  Mix on medium-high with an electric mixer for about a minute or until completely combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan and then drop the pan on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and cool for 15-30 minutes before removing the cake from the pan and cooling completely on a wire rack.
Crumb the cake into a bowl, then mix though the cream cheese.  Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls, then place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to chill.
Place the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, and melt the chocolate by microwaving it, stopping and stirring it every 30 seconds until it is smooth.
Dip the cake balls into the chocolate to coat them (I find using forks, as mentioned in my Mint Chocolate Truffle recipe post, to be the easiest and tidiest looking method), if the cake balls start to fall apart, place them back in the fridge (or zap them in the freezer) to chill some more.  Sprinkle over any additional decoration before the chocolate sets so that it sticks.

For more Valentines Day baking ideas, check out this post we put together of recipes that we think would go down a treat!