ORE-Oh My! Truffles....

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I had been warned, before coming to Paris, that after a few months of living abroad, I would start craving typical American food - peanut butter, hot dogs that didn't come inside a baguette, nachos oozing with processed cheddar...and as my American friends slowly started to succumb to their cravings, I stood firm in my lack of cravings for American cuisine. Until, until, until - until one March afternoon, when I saw a six-pack of OREOs beckoning me to come release it from its vending machine prison. And how was I to resist?


I hadn't eaten an OREO cookie in six months, or more. It seemed like every pain au chocolat, every strawberry-wasabi macaron, every bottle of Saumur, would never be as tasty as that first OREO cookie. And then, I couldn't stop - I saw cookies everywhere, every train station had a vending machine, every shop had a pack. It took every ounce of restraint to resist their siren song - Six OrEOs! One Euro only! Prix fou!

So when trying to decide what to get my coworkers as a 'very American' going away present, I decided to rid myself of the OREO-craving for once and for all, with this recipe from allrecipes.com.

As promised, the recipe is easy, and I think even I, the complete kitchen-n00b did okay. It's also fairly cheap - if you live in America. In France, however, a pack of 16 OREO cookies costs 3 Euros. And don't get me started on the cost of Philadelphia cream cheese. Just saying.

But it does the trick - lots of gooey OREO-cream cheese to nibble on while prepping...and chocolate-y goodness at the end!


Easy OREO Truffles

(Recipe slightly modified from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
40-ish OREO cookies
8 oz Philadelphia cream cheese (I used Light to reduce the guilt factor)
16 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate (I used Hershey's, for that extra-American kick)

Directions:
1. Crush 8 cookies (or fewer - you could do with 6) into fine crumbs using a food processor - or, if you're me and working in a ghetto kitchen, shove them into a plastic bag and smash them to smithereens using a wine bottle (because your landlady doesn't have a rolling pin, much less zip-lock bags). Set these guys aside, they're going to be the topping.
2. Crush the rest of the cookies into crumbs (hmm..this recipe is quite therapeutic...) and mix the crumbs into softened cream cheese. I added a bit at a time, and blended using a wooden spoon (because again, I'm in a ghetto kitchen that doesn't have a silicon spatula or an electric blender).
3. Roll this mixture into little balls. The allrecipes.com recipe calls for 1" balls, which is what I did, but next time I'd make them smaller - maybe 1/2-3/4", so they're even cuter. Set them aside.
4. Melt chocolate! No microwave in this apartment, nor double boiler, so I did it old school - metal bowl over saucepan of water. I tried very hard not to dip my fingers into the liquidy goodness...I did not succeed. Some chocolate may disappear during this step.
5. Dip the balls in chocolate and place them on a wax-covered baking sheet, tray, plate, etc.
6. Sprinkle chocolate-coated truffles with the crushed cookies you'd set aside earlier, and pop the trays into the fridge.
7. Let truffles set for about one hour, then try not to eat them all in one go.

Prep time: 30 minutes
Chill time: 1 hour (enough to get in an episode of LOST)
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Lessons learned: Cooking can make your right arm very strong. Need to discover a hobby to engage my left arm...or become an ambidextrous stirrer-blender.

3 comments:

Steph said...

3 posts. 3 sweets.

je ne crois pas! (sacarstic undertone)

Amrita said...

You think eventually one of us would have to post about eggs...or croissants, since we are the Brunch club :)

Steph said...

I'm attempting a Brunch a demain! I will be sure to post... booyah.

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