With this little bit of mint-chocolatey goodness...
I found
this recipe for Mint Oreo Truffles a few weeks ago and it immediately got my attention. So, when I was thinking of something to bring for our Life Group Christmas party this week I decided to give them a try.
And they did not disappoint.
Unfortunately I could not find any Mint Oreos. I did my shopping in Aldergrove that day, and after Safeway came up empty, I decided to head to the (very shady) Extra Foods downtown. My expectations were pretty low and as I scanned the cookie aisle for the minty oreos, I was feeling defeated.
But then I spotted something different and I figured that it just might work:
President's Choice Candy Cane cookies.
I had to try one at home of course to make sure they tasted at least somewhat similar to a mint oreo, and it was actually really good!
So, I gathered all the rest of my ingredients:
- 1 box of mint-flavoured oreo-type cookies
- 1 block of cream cheese
- 1 bag of white chocolate chips (any white chocolate will work, but I realized later that I should've bought a bit more)
- 1 tsp peppermint extract
- green food colouring
Also - vegetable oil (or in my case, canola oil) may come in handy to help your chocolate melting phase (more on that in a minute).
First, crush a few of the cookies and set it aside for your topping. I crushed 4, but I probably could've gotten away with just 3.
Then crush the rest of the cookies. I used my handy dandy food processor:
Add the block of cream cheese and combine until there are no more chunks. The recipe suggested adding a few extra oreo crumbs (if you have them around) because the consistency is really soft and creamy. I was planning to do this, but totally forgot. My truffle filling
was really soft, but the truffles were also insanely delicious, so the extra crumbs weren't missed at all.
Next, roll the filling into nice little balls.
And next comes the tricky part. Maybe not tricky for others who are more experienced in the art of chocolate melting, but it turned out to be tricky for me.
This step involves melting the white chocolate. I used a bowl inside of a pot as a double-boiler. My chocolate was melting beautifully and then all of a sudden it turned into a thick and chunky mess - definitely not fit for dipping my very soft truffles.
(At this point I had already added the peppermint extract and green food colouring, still hoping the chocolate could be salvaged somehow.)
So, I googled something like "save my chocolate!" and found
this link, which gave me a quick education about what I did wrong. I didn't realize that the teensiest bit of water (including steam) coming into contact with chocolate can cause it to seize or that melting the chocolate over boiling water is actually too hot and can over-heat it... So, I had obviously done at least one of these things wrong. The website suggested adding vegetable oil to try to salvage the chocolate. I had some canola oil in the cabinet, so I figured I had nothing to lose at this point.
And lo and behold, it actually worked! It turned the chunkified mess into a texture that actually was dip-able. It wasn't quite as smooth and silky as the chocolate should've been, but it did the trick.
In the meantime, I had also decided to put my truffles in the freezer so they could harden. I would actually recommend this step whether your chocolate gets ruined or not since it made them much easier to dip.
After dipping each one, I put them back on the baking sheet and sprinkled them with the extra crushed cookies right away before the chocolate hardened. (It was at this point that I realized I didn't have enough melted chocolate for all of them, so I have some extra filling balls waiting in the freezer for another occasion).
And let me tell you, these little babies are d-i-v-i-n-e.
