Chocolate and Peppermint Candy Cane Cake Balls

Click here for the delicious recipe from Crave.Indulge.Satisfy blog!

I had these at a party over a month ago and I couldn't get them out of my head.  I thought about them on almost a daily basis and have been waiting for an event I could justify making 50 cake balls for.  Ha.  Not something I needed hanging out around the house, right? 

So, today was the MOPS Christmas party and it was our table's turn to bring food.  I am beyond exhausted this week and have nixed all the other fun craft and baking ideas I had (cinnamon rolls for the neighbors, sewing the felted sweater stockings, etc) due to lack of sleep.  But these cake balls had to be made.

Slight adjustments I made:

• I used Dr. Oetker's Chocolate Cake Mix because it has a deep chocolate flavor but isn't super moist.  Cake balls can go mushy really fast if you aren't careful.
• I was careful to not add too much icing -- just enough to make sure the cake balls held their shape.
• I added a few crushed peppermints to the cake mix for extra peppermint flavor
• I also added about 2 tsp of peppermint extract to the icing
• I bought the pre-crushed peppermints...I've never seen these before and they were worth all $2.50 I paid!

I'm making more this weekend for the neighbors.  Mmmmm.  Enjoy!