My mom had me when she was 38 – I was the last and certainly least planned of the bunch.  She was born in 1944 and came of age during the 60′s, but unlike many of her peers who were rebeling against the conservatism of their parents – she clung to the traditional values prescribed by the preachers in her small town.

All she ever really wanted in life was to play the role of homemaker wife for a breadwinning husband.

Two divorces, three kids, and a lot of heartache later – my mom still prays for the relationship dynamic that she dreamed of as a teenager, but that has always seemed to elude her.

I, on the other hand, don’t spend a lot of time thinking about cooking or cleaning … things get split up pretty equally but neither Nick nor myself are passionate about it. This Valentine’s Day, I did something that would make my mom proud – I tapped into my inner (and usually very buried) homemaker / baker.

I spent the afternoon baking Chocolate-Covered Cake Balls, Candy Lips, Chocolate-Covered Strawberries, and a couple of mini-cakes for my sweetie.

Two of Nick’s younger sisters helped me put it altogether, but it still took 5 hours to finish it all. A) Baking is not my forte; and B) Because of that, I ended up making about 10x the amount of everything … so the girls were left with tons of chocolate goodies to decorate and munch on. Not a bad deal eh?

This is not my recipe – in fact, I blatantly stole the idea from the uber-talented Bakerella. I simply modified it like Tina, using a strawberry cake mix in order to keep with my strawberry theme.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cake Balls

Step 1: Follow the directions on the cake box. Bake, cool, and then crumble in bowl (the girls’ favorite part!)

Step 2: Add to bowl roughly 1/2 tub of Cream Cheese frosting (use Rich & Creamy rather than the Whipped version). Mix thoroughly with crumbled cake.

Step 3: Roll into small balls – placing them on wax paper.

Step 4: Chill cake balls. I found putting the tray in the freezer for about 30 – 45mins did the trick very well.

Step 5: Melt semi-sweet chocolates for dipping. Since I don’t have a fancy-shmancy double boiler, I did it the ghetto way (place a glass bowl on top of a simmering pot of water – just make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water or your chocolate will burn).

Step 6: Dip away! Using either a toothpick or a fork simply slosh the ball around til it’s coated in chocolately goodness – then place it back on clean wax paper. Chill once again (30mins in the freezer) and it should be ready to eat. MmmMmm!