Super Cute Chocolate Cherry Cake Truffles

Could you make a cake from scratch? Absolutely. But while we know you love your people and would do anything for them, this step is one that’s best made as easy as possible. Since I don’t think there’s any such thing as “too much chocolate,” I go for the chocolatiest cake mix I can find—devil’s food is great.

Bake the cake (cakes, if you’re using two round pans instead of a 9×13″ dish) exactly according to package directions, no changes necessary. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for about 5 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack. Allow them to cool completely—at least an hour.

Don’t stress about sticking

If some of the cake sticks to the pan, no need to panic. You’ll be crumbling it all up anyway, so just scrape it out with a spatula onto the cake(s) to cool as well.

While the cake is cooling, strain the maraschino cherries in a mesh strainer over a food-safe bowl. Save the juice for something yummy—like these Cherry Vodka Sours!

Cut the cherries in half and place them cut-side down on a paper towel to dry out a bit. This will help keep the filling from getting too wet and messy when you’re assembling them, and will also keep the truffles a manageable size.

Add the two sticks of room-temperature butter to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Turn the mixer on low to break the butter up a bit, then increase speed to medium and whip for about 30 seconds, or until the sides of the bowl are covered in light, fluffy butter.

Turn the speed back down to the lowest setting and add the powdered sugar to the butter one cup at a time. Once the sugar is somewhat incorporated, remaining at low speed, add the cocoa powder, pinch of salt and vanilla.

Begin adding the heavy cream or milk one tablespoon at a time. When things start to come together, turn the mixer speed up to medium, adding more cream until you get a light, fluffy frosting. You might need to stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice to get all the butter mixed in.

Tip: Forgot to set the butter out before starting the frosting? Put the sticks in the microwave, wrappers on, for 10-15 seconds. They’re softened enough when they have a tiny bit of give to them.

Channel your inner 1-year-old and smash that cake up with your bare hands, then sprinkle it into the mixing bowl with the chocolate buttercream frosting. Big chunks, little chunks, it doesn’t matter.

Once all the cake has been added, turn the mixer on low. Allow the paddle attachment to break the cake down and mix it into the frosting a bit, then once it starts coming together, turn the speed up to medium and mix for about a minute until you have a thoroughly combined filling.

Congratulate yourself on making your cake truffle filling by sneaking a bite or two. I won’t tell.

You’ve got your filling. You’ve got your cherries. Let’s put them together!

Take a rounded teaspoon of cake truffle batter and use your fingertips to flatten it out a little. Place a halved maraschino cherry in the center and press the batter up around the sides.

Take another half a teaspoon of the batter and put it on top, roughly pinching the sides and top together. When the cherry is well covered, gently roll the truffle into a little ball with the palms of your hands. Set the truffle aside on a piece of parchment paper.

Once you’ve got all your truffles formed, place them in a container and freeze for 4 hours, or overnight.

Why freeze?

The truffle filling is soft—that’s part of why it’s so delicious. Freezing it firms it up, helping it stay on the toothpick while dipping later. While you’re waiting for it to chill, you can make the cute little DIY cherry stems!

Okay, so you don’t have to be this cute with your chocolate cherry cake truffles, but we absolutely encourage it.

To make the stems for your little cherry lookalikes, you’ll need:

• green coated floral wire, cut into 3″ strips (use wire cutters or a pair of scissors you don’t care about…not your good scissors)
• green tissue paper
• piece of scrap paper or card stock
• pencil
• scissors
• tape

Make the leaves

First, draw a leaf shape on a piece of scrap paper in pencil, then cut it out. This will be your pattern. (Though if you’re comfortable with the idea, go ahead and freehand those leaves in the following steps instead.)

Stack four pieces of tissue paper on top of one another. On the top piece, trace around the leaf you cut out of scrap paper. Trace the leaf all around the edges of the tissue paper, as many times as you can comfortably fit.

Cut the leaves out carefully with a good pair of sharp scissors. (You could also use a cutting mat and craft knife, if you have them.)

Assemble the stems

Next, take two strips of floral wire and twist one end together. Take two tissue paper leaves and using tape, attach them to the twisted end of the floral wire “stems.” Done!

Warm the candy melts according to the package directions. At the right temperature, your candy coating should drizzle easily off of a spoon.

But if you’re making your chocolate cherry cake truffles in a cold kitchen in February, this consistency is hard to achieve and your melted candy coating is likely to cool and set up thicker and faster than you’d like.

So we highly recommended adding the two following steps to the package directions:

• Melt the candies in a saucepan over low heat or in a double boiler instead of a microwave. That way you’re not having to reheat them every 2-3 minutes (maddening).
• Add solid vegetable shortening, a teaspoon at a time, to your melts to help you get that thin, glossy, drizzly consistency at a lower temperature.

Keep an eye on that candy melt

Be sure not to overheat your candy coating. A little shortening can help correct mildly overheated candy melts, but once it’s too far gone, it’s no longer usable.

Don’t use anything other than solid vegetable shortening to thin it. Much like melted chocolate, if you add liquid to heated candy melts, the entire batch will seize up and crystallize, turning into a grainy, unusable mess.

Remove the formed truffles from the freezer. Insert a toothpick into a truffle and dip it into the melted candy coating, using a spoon to get consistent coverage if needed. Tap the toothpick gently on the side of the saucepan to remove excess coating. (If the excess isn’t coming off easily, the coating is too thick…thin it with a little shortening as directed above.)

Set the dipped truffle on parchment and immediately top with red sugar sprinkles. Don’t wait until you have a few dipped—the candy coating sets fast, and once it does, the sprinkles won’t stick.

After the coating has had about 30 seconds to set, gently wiggle the toothpick out of the dipped and sprinkled truffle, and move on to the next one. I find that once you get going, by the time you’ve dipped and sprinkled the third truffle, you can go back and remove the toothpick from the first one.

Tip: Got a wonky looking truffle? You can totally roll them after they’ve been chilled to get them into the desired shape.