I seem to have accidentally found myself on a quest. Ever since I made these Old Fashioned Old Fashioned Donuts, I am determined to make baked goods that are Old Fashioned themed. I made a pretty successful Old Fashioned cake last year, and some old fashioned shortbread at the start of this year. I’m really stacking up the old fashioned baked goods! So as I said, it’s turned into a mini-quest to turn the flavor into as many desserts as possible. Now, it’s Old Fashioned Cake Truffles.
During my time at Milk Bar, I ate a lot of their products. But I was never particularly a fan of their truffles, and I only liked the gluten free birthday or the seasonal ones. I think they mass-produced the birthday truffles too much.
But my brother has always been a big fan of the truffles! So when I was coming up with a baked good to make to celebrate him being an official Minnesota resident with his own official apartment, Old Fashioned cake truffles just made sense!
And while they were never my favorite treat, they are loads better than just plain cake pops. I think it’s in the chocolate coating and the filling consistency – it’s a thin enough shell to get a crunch, and the filling is smooth enough to be truffle-like as opposed to… the texture of cake pops, which is sometimes thick and gloopy or still too cake-like.
These are pretty simple, all things considered. I saw these dehydrated oranges with aromatic bitters at Total Wine, so I knew they’d be good to incorporate. I ground up some of those in a food processor, and mixed them with the cake crumb that goes on the outside of the truffles. I mixed whiskey and bitters into the milk holding the cake truffle together.
I’d been planning to make the white chocolate shell cherry flavored as well, but it didn’t work as planned. Yet, I think it works without it! It still captures the cocktail flavor!
So, with the full pun intended, cheers (these Old Fashioned cake truffles) to having more family in town!
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PinIngredients
- 1 recipe yellow cake, baked in a sheet pan (I just used box mix)
- 2–4 tablespoons whiskey milk
- 3 ounces white chocolate, melted
- 1 recipe orange sand
For the Whiskey Milk
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 tbsp whiskey
- 1 teaspoon bitters
For the Orange Sand
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar, tightly packed
- 2/3 cup flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 1/2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
- Dehydrated oranges, pulverized
Instructions
- Prepare your cake according to the recipe.
- Prepare the orange sand: Heat the oven to 300°F.
- Combine the sugars, flour, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed until well combined.
- Add the oil and vanilla and paddle again to distribute. The wet ingredients will act as glue to help the dry ingredients form small sandy clusters; continue paddling until that happens.
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- Let the crumbs cool completely before using. Grind down in a food processor with the dried oranges, until they are a sandy consistency. Stored in an airtight container, the sand will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.
- Prepare the whiskey milk: Whisk together the ingredients for the whiskey milk.
- Assembly: Remove the cake from the sheet pan. Break the cake down into crumbs and combine with half the whiskey milk soak in a medium bowl. Toss with your hands until most enough to knead into a ball. If necessary slowly add more soak, a little more at a time, and knead it in. You want the filling to be moist and soft, not chewy.
- Use a tablespoon (or small cookie scoop) to scoop even amounts of the cake truffle filling, each scoop approximately half the size of a ping-pong ball. Roll each scoop between your hands, and then chill the balls in the fridge for a half an hour before the next step.Put the orange sand in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Melt the white chocolate and stir until smooth.
- With latex gloves on (or… just with your clean bare hands), put two tablespoons of white chocolate coating in the palm of your hand and roll each ball between your palms, coating it in a thin layer of melted chocolate; add more chocolate to your palm as needed.
- Put 3 or 4 chocolate-covered balls at a time into the bowl of orange sand. Immediately toss them with the sand to coat, before the chocolate shell sets and no longer acts as a glue.
- Refrigerate for at least 5 minutes to fully set the chocolate shells before eating or storing. The truffles will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week in the fridge or up to 1 month in the freezer.