Oreo Truffles

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For St. Valentine’s Day I made some Oreo Truffles. I have some candy and chocolate making experience from my mom, but this is the first time I have attempted to make them on my own. They are surprisingly simple to make and are very, very good. I had to make them quickly when no one was around, so there are a few things I would have done differently.

I lack a double boiler so I had to improvise. The idea behind a double boiler is to use indirect heat from steam to melt the chocolte. What I did was simply take a saucepan filled half way with water and put my mixer’s bowl on top of it. The fit could have been a little better, but it got the job done.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb semi-sweet chocolate chips.
• 1/2 lb white chocolate chips.
• 2 tsp vanilla extract.
• 3 tsp ground all-spice.
• 1 pack cream cheese, softened.
• 2 1/2 sleeves Oreo cookies, crushed.

Directions:

1. Soften the pack of cream cheese and break it up a bit in a mixing bowl.
2. Put the Oreos in a ziplock bag and crush them.
3. Add the Oreos, vanilla and all-spice to the bowl and mix on a lower setting until the mix is a uniform black paste. There should be no lumps unless you want lumps in the final product.
4. Use a spoon and your hands to form the paste into small balls. Ping pong ball sized is probably a bit too big.
5. Cover a baking sheet or a plate in some sort of wax paper of plastic wrap and put the balls in the freezer until they are hard.
6. Use a double boiler to melt the semi-sweet chocolate and get it to about body temperature. If the chocolate is too cold or too hot it will not cooperate.
7. Use a spoon to stir the chocolate constantly as the water below it boils and melts it.
8. Dip the frozen Oreo balls into the chocolate and and coat them evenly, then put them back on the covered sheet. The chocolate will harden quickly, so watch for pinholes or cracks.
9. Reheat the chocolate if it doesn’t seem to coat evenly.
10. Use any extra chocolate for pretzels or strawberries.
11. Melt the white chocolate in the same way, but be careful not to let it get too hot. It can melt the semi-sweet coating.
12. Be sure that all of the semi-sweet chocolate is hardened.
13. Put the white chocolate in a ziplock bag and snip the tip of a corner off. The chocolate is going to come out pretty fast, so be ready.
14. Squeeze gently to ‘paint’ designs on the chocolates.
15. Once the white chocolate is hardened put the truffles in the fridge to keep them cool. Remember that the cream cheese will spoil if left out.

The cream on the inside of the truffles will expand as it warms up, possibly cracking the chocolate or squeezing out of pinholes.