This Red Velvet Truffles recipe is super easy and delicious. These bite-sized cake balls are a perfect dessert dish for Christmas or Valentine’s

If you visit my house any time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day you’ll find an abundance of holiday decorations, and that includes a beautiful nativity set. But you won’t find a baby Jesus in the manger. Nope.
It’s always been a tradition in our house to not put baby Jesus in the display until Christmas day. After all, that’s the day we celebrate his birth. It might seem strange but that’s just one of the ways my family works to remind everyone about the reason for the season.

Another family tradition of ours is to do a whole day of baking! We spend the entire day baking tons of Christmas cookies and treats. One of our favorite treats to whip up are these delicious Red Velvet Cake Truffles.
Y’all these little jewels are SUPER easy! If you’re a fan of red velvet cake, then you will absolutely adore these red velvet cake truffles. These are also great to make around Valentine’s Day because of their decadent flavor and fun red color. Throw them on a stick and you’ve got yourself a cake pop! (That stick also makes them MUCH easier to dip!)

What is red velvet?
Red velvet is a popular dessert cake that is known for its distinct, deep red color and vanilla, slight chocolate, and tangy flavors. You will often find red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting or ermine frosting.
In this recipe, we’re using a shortcut boxed cake mix to make red velvet cake. Then we’re going to mix that crumbled red velvet cake and canned cream cheese frosting to create a dough of sorts to form the center of our red velvet truffles. Then we’ll roll it into balls or scoop it up with a cookie scoop and dip them in candy melts or melted chocolate almond bark to create red velvet cake pops, similar to chocolate truffles.

Recipe Tips & Variations
- Cool before you crumble! Wait for the cake to fully cool before you crumble up the cake. This makes the cake much easier to work with and less likely to clump together.
- Use a cookie scoop! Once you have your cake crumbles and icing mixed together, scoop your mixture up with a cookie scoop. This makes forming the cake balls a lot easier to handle and less messy.
- Chill the cake balls! Give your cake balls time to chill on the top of a parchment paper lined baking sheet. This helps prevent the balls from falling apart when you dip them in the candy coating.
- Use a fork to dip! I recommend quickly lowering the cooled cake balls into the melted almond bark. The fork will allow the coating to get mostly all around the cake ball and saves you from having some super sticky fingers.
- Create other cake balls! You can easily follow this same recipe to create all kinds of cake balls or truffles. You could substitute the red velvet cake mix for vanilla or chocolate cake mix. Then you could change out the white almond bark for white chocolate or milk chocolate. There are so many different versions of these cake balls you could create when you follow this recipe!
- Try these other recipes! If you love these Red Velvet Truffles, then I highly recommend trying my Perfect Red Velvet Cake, Red Velvet Cake Mix Cookies, and Red Velvet Gooey Butter Cake. Yum!

Recipe Card
Red Velvet Cake Truffles
Ingredients
- 1 (15.25-ounce) box red velvet cake mix
- + ingredients to prepare the cake mix per the package instructions
- 1 (16-ounce) container prepared cream cheese frosting
- 1 (24-ounce) package white almond bark
- sprinkles or chopped nuts for decoration (optional)
Instructions
- Prepare the cake per the directions on the box using the 9X13-inch pan method.
- Allow the cake to cool completely. Once cool, crumble it into a large bowl.
- Add container of icing to the cake crumbs and mix thoroughly to combine.
- Use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop to portion the mixture out. Roll into balls and place them on a cookie sheet. Refrigerate the balls for at least 1 hour to allow them to firm up.
- Once balls are thoroughly chilled, melt the almond bark in the microwave using 30 second intervals. Be sure to stir between each interval until melted.
- Using a fork to dip and coat balls in white bark. Work quickly because as the balls warm up, they will start turning your white bark pink.
- Place on wax paper and decorate as desired. I drizzled some remaining bark over the truffles and sprinkled with decorative sugar on some and chopped nuts on the other.
* If nutritional values are provided, they are an estimate and will vary depending on the brands used. The values do not include optional ingredients or when ingredients are added to taste. If calorie count and other nutritional values are important to you, I recommend grabbing your favorite brands and plugging those ingredients into an online nutritional calculator.
Theresa
I don’t really care for almond bark. I make homemade stuffed red velvet cupcakes with homemade cream cheese frosting frequently. Wondering if there’s a way to stiffen up/harden cream cheese dip for the outsides?
I’m not aware of anyway to get that to harden up that much. Have you tried different brands of almond bark?
Michael
Just in passing, in my local church (Roman Catholic) the infant is carried in solemn procession by the celebrant down the center aisle as midnight strikes to be placed in the anger. Until then the infant is kept in the sacristy. This probably the case in many churches.
Cathe Salveson
Stacey,
My son who is 36y/o has always taken the baby jesus from the manger and kept it until christmas day, his daughter who is 14 and my oldest grandchild has continued this tradition. It always brings a smile to my face when I realize that the baby jesus has been taken from the manger. Wishing you and your family a Blessed Christmas.
Sylvia
I just made my first and second batches of cake balls/truffles. I made them before I saw this post…darn…the red velvet looks delicious. I’ll make them for Valentine gifts. I used white cake with sugar free vanilla frosting and stirred in shredded coconut. Dipped in vanilla coating. Sprinkled lightly toasted coconut over tops. The others were gingerbread. (good, but the coconut was better). I used vanilla coating and Christmas sprinkles.
Here’s what I learned about dipping:
Holding the refrigerated ball in your fingertips, dip it in the coating enough to cover the bottom half of the ball. Immediately sit it on the tines of a fork. Hold over the bowl of coating and spoon the coating over the top of the ball to cover completely. Tap the fork on the edge of the bowl to remove excess coating. Gently push the coated ball off the fork (onto parchment or waxed paper) with the edge of the spoon. I found this much easier than dipping the whole ball and fishing it out of the bowl. It also kept the coating nice and clean…no lumps of cake crumbs. I also found that melting a little of the coating at a time …about a cup or less…was a good idea. If you melt too much at one time it may get too cool and thicken before you finish your batch of cake balls.
Stacey’s truffles look beautiful with his red sprinkles on the drizzled coating. I took the easy way and added the coconut and sprinkles immediately after coating. Don’t wait or the coating will harden and the sprinkles won’t stick.
Merry Christmas and Happy Baking to All
Thanks so much for the advice! I love it when my readers share their methods!
Deanne
Stacey, after many years of making truffles or my son’s favorite chocolate covered peanut butter balls, I learned a couple of tricks tj as take getting them coated a lot easier…at least for me anyway. I put the truffles on waxed paper on a cookie sheet, stick a toothpick in the top.of each one, and then pop.them in the freezer. Once they are frozen, holding onto the toothpick, I just roll the truffle around in the coating, and set them on another cookie sheet on wax paper. After just a few minutes you can pull the toothpick out, and ta da! Perfectly covered, and not so messy! I also put a bit of paraffin wax in to melt with the coating…makes it all Shiney and pretty, and the coating seems to not ‘ melt’ if you have them sitting out with your other goodies.
Great tips! Thanks for sharing!
Jessica
Welp, I’m gonna just go ahead and say I don’t think I’m cut out for dipping. I think I wore more of this than actually got on the cake balls, and did I mention one got stuck to my shirt? Yea….not a good day at The Morris House. I managed to end up with 30 of them, just barely…and I too ran out of bark. This is one of those recipes that would go GREAT with a video!
LOL! When I first read your post, I thought you were saying that you should have videoed yourself, and I was just a’ giggling thinking about watching a video of you pick one of these off of your shirt! Then, I realized… oh, wait. She means a video tutorial!! I’ll get on that for you! I’ve got a great trick to share! So sorry you had so much trouble! We’ll see what we can do.
Shawn
‘Saw your yummy guest post on Southern Plate…While visiting your site, this post title, along with many others caught my attention. I’m copying the Baby Jesus sentiment for next Christmas but, not waiting to make the truffles! I think they’ll show up at Easter Brunch in Bham.
Shawn – it’s just one of those things that we’ve always done in my family and when folks ask why there’s no baby Jesus, it’s a great way to remember the reason for the season! The truffles are divine! They are good ANY time of the year! Enjoy!
Tessa Aโฅ
I’m DEFINITELY trying this recipe!!!!
suzie
This was simple but messy!! I ran out of almond bark though. I got an 16oz pkg but still have a dozen left without the bark…any suggestions on how to make it go further?
Oh no, Suzie! They are messy! But what good recipe isn’t!?!? The almond bark I used was 24 oz, so that may be part of the difference. I’ll note that in the recipe. Also, be sure to tap off the excess coating when dipping them. I usually use a fork to dip them. I dunk them, scoop them up with a fork, and shake off the excess by tapping the fork on the edge of the bowl. That should help make it go farther.
Susan Crane
These look wonderful. I love red velvet,(what self respecting southerner doesn’t?), but it is so rich. These would be perfect for that tiny, exquisite, velvety tidbit to finish off a big holiday meal. Thanks so much. I really enjoy your site. I live up in the country of North Baldwin, AL and it is so nice to see all of these wonderful southern blogs ( you and Souther Plate especially). Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.
Tammy
Oh my!!! These look delicious!! Got to try them. And how nice they would be for Valentine’s Day too! Thanks for posting this!