Christmas Play & Cake Ball Ornaments - Countdown to Christmas - Day 14

For the past month and a half, Sophia and Olivia have been involved with play practice at church twice a week (on Sundays and Wednesday evenings). Tonight was the first performance and tomorrow will be the second one.

Olivia and Sophia as angels in the play.

The girls each have lines they speak during the play as well as songs they sing with other members of the children's choir.

They had a lot of fun tonight and enjoyed being a part of the play.

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Earlier in the day we made Cake Ball Ornaments. It was an idea that I had pinned on Pinterest that led to A Step in the Journey.

Supplies:

Cake Balls (Cake mix; additional ingredients listed on box; and a 16-ounce tub of frosting)
Almond bark
Christmas Sprinkles
Mini Reese's (not miniature...mini)
Twizzlers

Directions:

Make cake balls by baking a cake in a 9"x13" pan. After it has cooled, crumble it until it no longer looks like a cake into a large bowl. Add 3/4 of the tub of frosting and mix until the cake and frosting can be formed into balls.

Place the cake balls onto a wax-paper covered cookie sheet and place in the freezer for 15 minutes (or longer - the goal is to have the cake balls not crumble when they are dipped in the melted chocolate).

(As a side note, I could not find mini reese's, so we used the miniature ones. The cake balls had to be much larger than we have made in the past. This made it challenging to get them covered without them crumbling a bit.)

Use a kitchen shears or scissors to cut the licorice into thin strips (about 2 inches long), making sure each end comes to a point.


In the top of each mini Reese's, make two holes (side by side) with a toothpick. Insert the licorice, one end in each hole.

Dip the cake balls into melted almond bark or colored chocolate; and then add the sprinkles.

Sophia dipping the cake balls in melted chocolate while

Olivia puts the sprinkles and top on them.

Quickly add the mini Reese's and licorice top or the chocolate will harden and it won't attach.

Cake balls in different stages of the process.

Note: Although the original image on Pinterest is cute and looks easy to make, it wasn't an easy recipe for us to make. We all agreed that we would finish making the batch of cake ball ornaments that we started, but would not be making this recipe in future years.

Finished cake ball ornaments.

Despite the fact that they didn't turn out visually as we anticipated, they taste great. So, although we won't be including these on the cookie trays we give away...we'll still enjoy them at home.