Brown Butter Popcorn: Red Velvet Cake Balls

My work is constantly doing charity events - this month we have been making Valentine's cards and are going to have a party for the elderly. To help encourage employees to make cards, we brought in treats for ourselves to enjoy while making the cards. I've been looking for an excuse to make something from Bakerella - and her featured sweet (at the time) were these adorable Red Velvet Cake Balls.

In addition, my college roommate's birthday is January 20th and I always made her Red Velvet Cake since we lived far away from our families (we were in Missouri and they were in Texas). Even though we no longer live together (me in Chicago and her in Spain), I always look for excuses to make her mom's recipe about this time of year.

Start out with getting together the sugar and butter (not pictured), flour, eggs, food coloring, cocoa, salt, buttermilk, vanilla and baking soda.

Mix together sugar and butter until will combined.

Add in eggs and mix. Add in flour and mix. (I used Bob's Red Mills GF All Purpose Baking Flour. It made the cake taste a little grainy; however, I did so much to it that you couldn't tell by the time that I was done with everything.)

Add in food coloring and mix. (I think it looks like blood - kinda cool!)

Add in cocoa and mix. Add in salt and mix.

Add in buttermilk and mix. Add in vanilla and mix.

In a seperate bowl, mix 1 tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp. vinegar. (It's like a volcano in 6th grade science class!)

Fold into the batter.

Pour into pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

They are done with a toothpick comes out clean.

Let them cool completely. (This made me really glad that I was making cake balls instead of an actual cake.)

While cooling, make cream cheese frosting.

Mix everything together until smooth.

Once the cake is completely cooled, crumble into a bowl.

Add in frosting.

Mix together and form into balls. (I used my clean hands - it was fun!) If you want them more uniformed, then try harder than I did to make the balls more uniformed - it will affect it later.

I stuck mine the fridge over night. The next evening, I prepared to chocolate dip them. Cut up the almond bark (vanilla flavored).

I don't have a double boiler or a microwave so I just put a bowl over a pot of warm water.

It melted, just the same.

Roll the cake balls in the melted chocolate.

Put the dipped cake balls on wax paper so they can harden. (NOTE: This made a lot. I dipped the other half in chocolate almond bark. And I only ate two of them - one in each flavor - which I was so proud of!)