First attempt at chocolate covered cake

I'm attempting to make some sort of chocolate covered cake (sorta like cake pops...with or without the sticks).  I've seen pictures.  :-)  And from what I read they are pretty much just cake mixed with icing and then dunked in chocolate.

I was thinking carrot cake would be great.  So I took a carrot cake recipe I grabbed off of Allrecipies.com and modified it.  Below is my modified version.  (I've done this before, but I lost my perfected modifications in the move.)

Carrot Cake
3 cups grated carrots
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 eggs
1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup no sugar added applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice (not syrup!)

Butter and flour up a 9x13 pan.  Preheat the oven to 350.  Mix the dry ingredients.  Then mix the wet in a separate bowl.  Add the dry to the wet.  Bake for 30-40 minutes.

For the frosting:
8 oz block of Neufchatel cheese (low fat cream cheese) softened
4 tablespoons of butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup confectioner sugar


The cake balls came out pretty good I think.  Once the cake was cool, I took my potato masher and mashed up the cake with the icing.  I put the mixture in the fridge for a few hours then made the balls.  HERE I made a mistake.  I should have refrigerated the balls.  This caused them to stick to the spoons etc. because they warmed up in the process of making the balls.

One other weird thing - they seem to ooze a bit.  I think maybe my cake may have been too moist.  For cake on the standing merit of cake, it was delicious.  But it may need to be a bit dryer when covered in chocolate?  I dunno.  This was an experiment.  I'll experiment some more...but probably not any time soon.

Between happy candy, peanut butter balls, coconut balls and oreo balls...I'm about sweeted out.  (It doesn't take much for me.)  And as I type this...the peanut butter balls are only half made and I haven't even started the other two.  NO WORRIES...it isn't all for me.  I enjoy the process of making the candy, so I decided to buy some tins ($1 each at WalMart!) and give them out as gifts.  :-)  I will randomly hand them out to people until the candy is all gone.

OK - it won't be entirely random.  I have a list.  Hopefully no one reading is going "HEY!  Where's *MY* candy?"  If so, simply reply "In the mail!" HAHAHAHA! ;-)