Chihuahua Cake Balls

I did it: I combined worlds of cake and cake balls  with these chihuahua cake ball cupcakes. Who says you can’t have it all?  These were a birthday present for my niece a few years back, so I don’t have many pictures of the process, but I can walk you through it.

Materials needed for chihuahua cake balls:

• Brown and white fondant
• Black and white royal icing (you can use fondant for this if you prefer)
• Chocolate or candy melts for dipping
• Cake ball material (mix baked cake with a small amount of icing)

Order of operations:

At least 2 days in advance:

• EARS (brown fondant): Use a leaf cookie cutter to cut out the brown fondant ears. Try to match the color to the chocolate or candy melt that you will use to dip the cake ball.
• PAWS & TAIL (brown fondant): These paws were like a droplet of water, with two knife scores at the end to give the impression of a paw.
• TIPS: Make extras of everything, as sometimes they break! Do this step well in advance (no less than 2 days), as the chihuahua ears need to be fairly strong to be able to press into the cake ball without breaking.

At least 1 day in advance:

• EYES (royal icing): Make the chihuahua eyes out of black royal icing. Just pipe uniform black dots onto parchment, and let them dry overnight. For these, I went with a basic black eye, but you could go next level by adding 2-3 small white dots in the upper corner of the eye to give it that shiny eye look. If you prefer, you can make the eyes out of black fondant instead. If you go this route, no need to make them in advance.
• EARS (royal icing): Use white royal icing to pipe a white center on all the ears. Pipe directly onto the dry fondant ears and allow to dry overnight. If you prefer to use white fondant, use the same leaf cutter you used for the brown fondant, and shave off a small amount all the way around the shape, creating a slightly smaller white inner ear shape.  Attach to brown fondant with a dab of water.

Day of: Assembly

• Roll out cake balls. Play around with different sizes of cake ball to make sure that the ear is sufficiently big! This ratio is crucial…if the head is too big, it will make for a cute dog, but won’t have that characteristic chihuahua look.  Too small, and your chihuahua is now a brown bunny.
• Dip cake balls in chocolate or candy melts using a fork. Directly after dipping, place cake ball parchment and immediately slide paws and tail under the cake ball.  Push in ears while chocolate is still wet. Add eyes now, or adhere later with some extra royal icing.
• Make white snouts with fondant. I wasn’t sure how big I wanted to make these, so I waited until the last minute. The nose is just a dab of the black royal icing that i used to make the eyes.  The cake balls below have snouts made of royal icing.
• Add a white stripe between the eyes from white royal icing. If you prefer, you can leave out this step, or make it out of fondant.

I ended up with more cake ball material than ears, so I used some scraps to make an “imposter.” See if you can spot her in the crowd. 🙂

 Originally posted on February 17, 2018