Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Cherry Filled Oreo Truffles

In light of my post yesterday, I thought I would share a kitchen success story.

This is my variation on the ever-popular Oreo truffles. Because if something sweet is good, adding something else sweet to it can only make it better, right?

Cherry Filled Oreo Truffles
Adapted from Kraft Foods

Ingredients
1 package of Oreos
1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese, softened
1 (12 oz) bag of semisweet chocolate chips
1 jar of maraschino cherries

Directions
1. Crush Oreos to fine crumbs using whatever method you’d like (food processor, putting them in a Ziploc bag and banging the heck out of them, whatever). Reserve about 1/8 cup of the crumbs to sprinkle on the finished truffles later.
2. Mix the remaining Oreo crumbs and the cream cheese until well blended (I use my stand mixer for this. I detest mixing cream cheese in any other way).
3. Drain the maraschino cherries and de-stem (is that a word?) them if need be. I actually found a store brand that comes de-stemmed.
4. Take about ¾ tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture and cover 1 cherry with it so the cherry is completely covered and the whole thing is rolled into a ball. Place it on a baking sheet or plate that will fit in your freezer. Repeat until out of cream cheese mixture or cherries (the number of truffles you get will depend on how large you make them. You usually want to shoot for about 1 inch in diameter, but I won’t cast judgment if you make them another size).
5. Place the baking sheet/plate into the freezer for about 15 minutes. This will help the truffles keep their shape when you dip them in the melted chocolate.
6. While the truffle innards are in the freezer, melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or whatever way you rig up a fake double boiler (I have a small pot with handles that can balance over a larger pot. I boil water in the larger pot and the chocolate chips go in the smaller pot).
7. Dip the cream cheese balls into the melted chocolate. I’ve found that rolling them in the chocolate and gently lifting them out with two forks usually works. Once dipped in chocolate, place the truffles on a wax paper covered baking sheet (I’ve used foil instead of wax paper in a pinch. That seemed to work well too).
8. Sprinkle the tops of the truffles with the reserved cookie crumbs.
9. Refrigerate the truffles until firm, which will take about 1 hour.
10. Store the truffles in a covered container in the refrigerator.

Put some of these in a lovely container and they make a great hostess gift. I say this because you will want to get as many of these out of your house as possible. Otherwise, you will be found slumped into your open refrigerator in a cherry-filled-Oreo-truffle-induced coma. Or your husband will gain five pounds while declaring that he is too manly to eat something called a “truffle” and secretly sneaking truffles out of the fridge at all hours of the day.

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