I consider myself to be someone with a pretty good sense of humor.
I can take a joke, make fun of myself and I really do love to laugh. My husband’s sense of humor and his ability to make me laugh is one of the things that made me fall for him from the beginning and is still one his many good traits that I love the most.
Ironically enough, though, I’ve never really been the biggest fan of April Fool’s Day. Well, when it comes to the pranks, at least. I don’t like being tricked.
Saran wrap over my toilet seat? Try that on me and prepare for you doom. Ink on a toothbrush, prank phone calls, silly string/paint on my car, whatever other crazy pranks are out there for April Fool’s or “just for fun”. Honestly, these things aren’t funny, they’re really just annoying. Or maybe I just don’t have a juvenile sense of humor?
Pranks aside, April Fool’s Day food is something I can get behind.
Specifically, this Spaghetti & Meatballs Cake. Maybe I do sort of like this whole April Fool’s thing?
My mom is a part of this competition at her job, a meatball competition. My mother and I are very similar; we’re definitely both “out of the box” thinkers. Naturally, when she heard about the meatball competition the last thing she wanted to make was an actual meatball. In her words, “how BORING! There are over a hundred of us on staff, I mean, how many FRICKEN’ meatballs can ya’ make!? Regular meatballs, turkey meatballs, veal meatballs, chicken meatballs, COME ON! BORING.” Her solution?
Make a cake. Naturally.
She googled “meatball cake” figuring there had to be something out there. She found this recipe from FoodNetwork.com which utilizes the cake ball technique to create the “meatball”. The recipe calls for a simple box mix cake, so it really is easy as can be! You simply bake up a chocolate cake in two prepared round cake pans. Crumble up one cake and form it into balls for your meatballs. Cover the second cake with canned vanilla frosting to make your “plate”. Tint the remaining frosting with a bit yellow food dye and cocoa powder to achieve the look of pasta. Place your meatballs on top of your first cake, pipe your colored frosting in a swirled motion to resemble pasta, drop some strawberry preserves on top for your “sauce” and grate some white chocolate over the whole thing to create the appearance of parmesan cheese! For a striking, surprising cake that looks like it took a great deal of effort this was insanely easy to create!
Keep hush about the meatball competition as this cake was only a trial run; we’ll be making another for the contest next week! However, I couldn’t wait until then to share this because this NEEDS to be made tomorrow to appropriately celebrate April Fool’s Day!
One word of caution, buy yourself a cake pan or cake transporter before attempting to deliver this cake. Driving around with it proved to be quite the challenge! Holding it up by my chest and down at my lap while driving brought the cake safely to its destination. 😉
Enjoy!
xoxo
lindsayylovee 