Cookie Dough Cake Balls

Have you ever listened into a conversation between people who go rowing? If you have you may be familiar with this phrase: '...they were just about to win when one of them caught a crab and punched themselves in the face' (!?)

You've heard them mention this more than a handful of times and think to yourself 'How many crabs can there be in the Thames?...oh.' Yes you've realized that things aren't always what they seem. These rowers are not in fact master crab fishermen, and catching a crab is not literally what it sounds like (which also makes their conversations a lot less interesting to non-rowers i.e. me). Aparrently catching a crab is something to do with your oar (or 'blade' as rowers like to call it), getting stuck in the water or whatever.

I wasn't really listening. I was eating cake.

I managed to turn the tables on those rowers; They're all as oblivious to the baking world, and things like cake pops and cookie dough bites, as I am to rowing and 'catching crabs' or 'ergos'. To the average, English non-baker, these look pretty much like a truffle or Belgian chocolate type thing, to those who have been to Starbucks, a cake pop.

But believe me, these are much more than that.

They have an extra layer,
a bit like the Inception equivalent of a cake pop.

Along with the chocolate and cake/frosting layer, there is a ball of cookie dough in the centre. It's everything you could ever want in one convenient little ball (and MUCH better than catching any kind of crustacean, literally or not).

Cookie Dough Filled Cake Balls

Cookie Dough

slightly adapted from Recipe Girl

1/4 cup (2 oz) butter

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp (3 oz) brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

7 oz sweetened condensed milk

1 cup (4.6 oz) flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup (2 oz) finely chopped chocolate

Chocolate Cake

1 cup (4.6 oz) flour

½ cup + 2 tbsp (2.25 oz) cocoa powder

¾ cup + 2 tbsp (7 oz) sugar

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

¼ cup + 2 tbsp (100 ml) oil

1 egg+ 1 egg white

¾ c (185 ml) yogurt

1/4 - 1/2 cup (4-8 tbsp) chocolate frosting

Chocolate for coating

Make your cookie dough first. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla. Mix in the sweetened condensed milk then the dry ingredients. Then stir in the chocolate chips. Set aside.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C and grease any kind of cake or brownie pan. Sift dry ingredients together. Stir in the wet ingredients until fully combined. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. After 5 minutes, turn out the cake onto a cooling rack and set aside. 

Scoop about 1 heaped tsp of cookie dough (depending on how much cookie dough you want in each ball), and roll into a ball. Place on a cookie tray lined with baking paper. Repeat until all cookie dough is used up. Refrigerate.

Once the cake is completely cool, crumble it into a bowl. Stir in enough frosting so that you get a consistency where the mixture will stick together when squeezed. Scoop tablespoons of cake ball mixture into your hand and flatten it out into a circle in your palm. Wrap this circle of cake ball mixture around a cookie dough ball, roll slightly with your hands, then place back into the cookie tray. Repeat until all cookie dough is used, then refrigerate while you melt your chocolate. 

when the chocolate is melted, remove the cookie dough cake balls from the fridge and dip one at a time into the chocolate (saveur has a good video on how to do this). Place back onto lined cookie tray (or on polystyrene if you're following the saveur video). Put in the fridge to set.