Red Velvet cake pops with red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting in the filling, plus a white chocolate coating. These are so great as hostess or holiday gifts. Plus, you can also dye half green and make a box of red and green truffles.
These red velvet cake pops are one of my favorite holiday food gifts to make! Have you ever made a cake truffle or a cake pop? It's essentially cake, crumbled and mixed with frosting until it sticks together in a compact little ball. Then, after a quick chill session, the cake ball is dunked in a coating to make it pretty.
I used the recipe for my small batch red velvet cupcakes to make these red velvet truffles, but I have a few notes about this.
The recipe below is almost identical to the cupcakes, and uses 4 cupcakes to make a small batch of 10 truffles. However, you can easily double the recipe, bake it in a 6" mini cake pan and get twice the cake truffles.
When I'm making these red velvet cake pops as gifts, I double the recipe. In my slightly expert opinion, I've found that 4 little truffles tucked into a small box is the perfect gifting size.
How to make red velvet cake pops:
The video for this recipe uses the 6" cake pan method to make the cake for the truffles. Alternatively, you can make the cupcakes. Remember: 4 cupcakes makes TEN truffles; adapt the recipe accordingly. Regardless, we're still crumbling lots of red velvet cake to make red velvet cake pops!
Here's the best part: to bind the cake together, we use cream cheese frosting. So, we're getting a bite of cake AND frosting at the same time! Now this is exactly why everyone loves cake truffles!
The little cake bites are totally delicious on their own, but a little white chocolate coating never hurt anyone either. I use almond bark to coat these red velvet truffles, because I find it much easier to work with than white chocolate, but you know your own chocolate skills. Use the coating that you're the most comfortable with. If your'e great at melting white chocolate without burning it (I am not), then use it! To play it safe, grab almond bark at the store--it's much more forgiving.
The Ingredients
- All-Purpose Flour.
- Cocoa Powder. Authentic red velvet cake has the slightest touch of cocoa powder in it. Don't fall for recipes that don't have a small amount of cocoa powder in them.
- Baking Soda.
- Oil. Any plain oil without flavor, like vegetable oil, canola oil, or grapeseed oil.
- Granulated Sugar.
- Buttermilk. Traditional red velvet cake is made with buttermilk. I like low-fat cultured buttermilk, easily found at every grocery store. If you'd like to use whole milk instead, just add a half-teaspoon to the milk. And yes, still add the other vinegar later on.
- Egg White. We only need the egg white for this recipe; save the egg yolk for another recipe, like my red velvet sugar cookies.
- Red Food Coloring. You can use regular red food coloring, or food gel. If you use the gel, you only need half the amount (½ teaspoon).
- Vanilla Extract.
- Vinegar. Regular white vinegar is a necessary component of red velvet cake, and no, your red velvet truffles will not taste like vinegar. It helps react with the baking soda and make the cake rise.
- Cream Cheese. Just like red velvet cake, we're using cream cheese frosting. But we're not spreading it on top, it's the glue that holds the truffle together. It's cake and frosting in one bite.
- Powdered Sugar.
- Almond Bark. I suggest almond bark because it's more forgiving than white chocolate for dipping. If you feel confident with white chocolate, use that, but know that almond bark is easier to work with and doesn't seize easily like white chocolate does
The Instructions
- Gather the ingredients to make the cake, and keep the cream cheese, powdered sugar and almond bark on the side for later.
- Place 4 cupcake liners in 4 cups of a muffin pan. Now, make the red velvet cake: whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl, beat together with an electric mixer the oil, sugar, buttermilk, egg white, red dye, vinegar and vanilla. Sprinkle the dry mixture over the wet and beat just to combine.
- Divide the mixture between the 4 cupcake liners, and bake at 350-degrees F for 20-22 minutes.
- Once the cupcakes have baked and cooled, crumble them into a medium-size bowl. Add the softened cream cheese and powdered sugar, and beat with an electric mixer to make everything homogenous.
- Scoop a heaping tablespoon of this mixture into your hands, and roll it into a perfect ball. It should be very easy to scoop and shape. Refrigerate the cake pops for at least 4 hours.
- After the 4 hour chill time, it's time to melt the almond bark or white chocolate coating. Chop the almond bark into one-inch pieces, and place in a bowl. Heat on medium power in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between each session, until smooth and melted. Refer to the package directions for exact cooking time.
- Dunk each truffle in the melted almond bark using a fork. Dunk quickly, and then let the excess drain off.
- Let the red velvet cake pops set on a lined cookie sheet. Once they're set, drizzle with extra melted almond bark to make the design seen in the photos. You can reheat the almond bark to do this, if necessary.
Variations:
-A fun twist on this recipe is bake one batch of the cupcakes using green food coloring instead of red. In each box, I put 2 green and 2 red velvet cake pops.
-You can double this recipe and bake the cake in a 6" pan to get 20 cake pops total.
Other red velvet recipes you may love:
More Favorites from Dessert for Two
Makes 10 red velvet cake pops* The first part of this recipe is identical to my recipe for red velvet cupcakes for two. *Recipe is easily doubled and baked in a 6" round cake pan to make 20 truffles.Red Velvet Cake Pops
Ingredients
For the rest:
Instructions
Notes
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10
Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 330Total Fat: 26gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 22gCholesterol: 9mgSodium: 248mgCarbohydrates: 19gFiber: 4gSugar: 13gProtein: 8g
claire @ the realistic nutritionist says
oh yum!!
Julia {The Roasted Root} says
How pretty and festive! I love all things chocolate and love your idea of changing up red velvet to make it elegant and bite sized. Perfect treat to give away as gifts!
Kimby says
Christina, I love your solution to the "towering 3-layer cake!" You are my hero. :) I wonder if this would work for Italian Cream Cake, too?
Georgia @ The Comfort of Cooking says
These look outrageous, Christina! I love red velvet cake and would love it even more bite-sized. Beautiful little bites!
tara @ Live a Sweet Life says
Cute idea. Red velvet is always amazing!
Jolene (www.everydayfoodie.ca) says
These are the perfect size for me! I sometimes crave something sweet, but not often, and I am very quickly satisfied after a bite or two.
Caroline @ Pink Basil says
Just now catching up on my blogger posts from the past month and had to say that these look AMAZING!!
Katie | The Hill Country Cook says
Oh muh gawd, you are speaking right to my heart!
Arielle Matlin says
These Red Velvet Truffles look too good! I just linked out to you on our newest blog post: http://www.recipechatter.com/truffle-season
Tara says
Hi so I was wondering if the recipe really needs white chocolate for the coating. it's just that I don't really like white chocolate. Thanx they look delicious in the photo. :)