Dark Chocolate Orange Cake Balls with Sea Salt

Combine dry cake mix with espresso powder, orange peel, kosher salt and cocoa. Add other ingredients per box instructions. Bake as directed. Take that beautiful cake out of the oven and let it cool for about 15 minutes. This is the hard part. Roughly cut it into squares and begin to crumble it up like there’s no tomorrow. Mix in 1/2 to 3/4 can of store-bought chocolate frosting. The consistency at this point should almost be like slightly undercooked brownies.

Let your mix cool for a few hours in the fridge. I usually do this part one day and come back the next day and do the rest.

Form your cake into balls with a cookie scoop like the one from Pampered Chef (this thing is worth its weight in gold.) Melt dark chocolate baking chips (almond bark or Wilton’s candy making chocolate work OK too) and dip the balls into the chocolate. I bought one of those candy dipping things from Michael’s, but it broke, so now I just take a plastic spoon and break out all the tines except for the two outside ones. It makes a perfect little transporter from the chocolate to the waxed paper.

Immediately sprinkle with coarse sugar or sea salt. Either one is yummy! Can be refrigerated or left at room temperature. Good luck only eating one or two …

P.S. My inspiration for this recipe came from Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Orange Espresso Thins cookie recipe.