Or otherwise known as Alysha vs. Candy, round 1.
As I know I have stated several, if not many, times before, candy and I don't get along. My attempt at almond brittle once came out like a sugar brick with expensive almonds trapped inside, the caramel slid off of my caramel apples (and I was only using packaged caramels) and the caramel on my apple tart got a little too close to hard crack stage. And those are only some of my candy stories! After each failure, it takes me a good long while to get back in the saddle to give it another shot.
This recipe - which I found on Joe's blog - only has 3 ingredients and does not involve a candy thermometer, so I decided to give it a try. Only I decided to try it for a pot luck at work which meant that I was #1, very anxious for it to come out nicely and, #2, making them on a weeknight. Recipe for failure again???
Well, almost. First, I had a hard time getting the balls to roll nicely. The recipe only calls for breaking the Oreos into fourths and then beating them in the mixer. This yields some fairly large chunks of cookiewith create crumbly pockets and can cause some of the balls to want to separate. I would process the Oreos into a finer crumb next time to avoid these dry pockets. I made the balls using a tablespoon - I was not in the mood to make 50-60 of these little suckers. The recipe made about 33 or so by the tablespoonful.
Once I had the balls formed, I put them in the fridge to chill. My mistake was in not making sure the pan was secure - the balls slid right off the pan and fell into the fridge. Frustrating to be sure, but they were firm enough to just pick right up and put them back on the pan.
Next, it was time to melt the chocolate. No problems there. Dipping the Oreo truffles was a whole other story. First, I just couldn't figure out how the heck to get the stupid balls off of my dipping tool and onto the pan without wrecking the nice white chocolate coating. I tried the dipping fork, the other two dipping doohickies and a toothpick. Nothing seemed to work well. I did like that with the dipping tools at least, you could tap off the excess chocolate, but I just could not get the truffles off the dipping tools easily. Next, I noticed that they balls just weren't chilled enough - little flecks of chocolate were breaking off into the dipping chocolate and they were sort of sticking - to the dipping tool and to the parchment paper.
Once the Oreo balls were nice and cold, I tried to perfect my dipping technique. I finally decided that my cheap dipping tools were just not working and tried my fingers (another suggestion I read online). Nope - all that did was leave marks on either side of the truffle where my fingers had been. GRRRR! Finally, my DS suggested using a regular old work. And what do you know? It worked! It was still a little tricky to get the balls off the fork, but they slid off much easier than with the dipping tools.
I still ended up with little bits of Oreo in the white chocolate, but I suppose that sort of adds to the Oreo or cookies and cream sort of look? Once you get the little drizzle of regular chocolate on top, it draws your eye upward and and away from the flaws - most of the flaws were toward the bottom of the truffles where I tried to get them to slide off the fork/tool. I found that 12 ounces of white chocolate wasn't quite enough to coat all the balls nicely, so I would melt 16 ounces next time to ensure there is plenty to go around.
Throughout the process I did let go a few choice words and started to get grumpy, but I walked away and came back with a positive attitude and it all turned out in the end. They didn't come out perfectly, but I was pleased. I took them to the all-college potluck and they were a hit. I did, however, discover one reason that one might want to make these by the rounded teaspoonful rather than larger like I did. As my coworkers were raving about the truffles and asking for the recipe, I noticed little bits of black stuck to the front of their teeth...........yeah, bite-size might be best................
