Deck The Balls! {Edible Christmas Decorations}

These little holiday jewels started out quite differently, as you may have seen on my Instagram feed, a couple weeks ago. The plan was to pipe an intricate design with royal icing. Of course, I can't tell you the last time I piped anything intricate, so my lack of practice quickly derailed my plans.

• Use an ice-cream scoop to add the batter to the mold, as it is less messy and provides a fairly uniformed finished product. Use a serrated knife to remove any peaks.

• Sandwich the halves together with a generous dollop of buttercream.

• Wearing gloves, (I make a habit of doing so, when handling food for others) spread a generous amount of buttercream over the sphere, then smooth it as best you can before placing in the fridge to firm.
• Once buttercream has firmed, roll out a thin sheet of marzipan and cover the sphere (sorry, forgot to take a photo). With a fresh pair of gloves, use your hands and fingers to mold and smooth the marzipan.

• Roll out a thin sheet of fondant and wrap the marzipan covered sphere. I would suggest you use bigger sheets of fondant and try to shape as close to a circle as possible. That will give a smoother surface to start.

• You can use cake smoother to help the process along, but I found using my hands provided more control over pressure and shape.

• Once you are satisfied with the look of the fondant, let it sit a little while. If air bubbles appear, use a sterile pin to pop them and your finger to smooth over any visible pin holes or creases.

• You may choose to airbrush at this point. If you don't own an airbrush, you can paint the spheres with edible paint or edible glitter mixed with vodka.

Red Vel Balls! {Edible Christmas Decorations}

Print Recipe

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes minutes

Course: Dessert

Servings: 12

Author: I Sugar Coat It

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoon water
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa I used E. Guittard Cocoa Rouge
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoon beet juice 1 medium beet yields about 4 tbsp
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup cornstarch
• 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 ½ cups superfine sugar

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375 F.
• Place the butter, water, and cocoa in a small saucepan and heat gently, without boiling, stirring until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
• Beat together the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla extract, vinegar and beet juice until frothy. Beat in the butter mixture.
• Sift together the flour, cornstarch and baking powder, then stir into the mixture with the superfine sugar.
• Pour batter into molds and bake at 350ºF for 30-35 minutes, or until risen and firm to the touch.
• Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes than turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.
• Assemble as shown above using your favourite buttercream or ganache.

Notes

Here are links to some of the items used in this post:
Half Sphere Silicone Cake Mold
Oxo Good Grips Trigger Ice Cream Scoop
Wilton Fondant & Gum Paste Global Mold
Wilton Fondant & Gum Paste Ferns Mold
Americolor Amerimist Airbrush Pearl Sheen Set
Iawata NEO CN Gravity Feed Dual Action Airbrush

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