truffles

Cookie Dough Easter Eggs

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 3 Comments

Holy cow, where has April gone? It seems like just last week B and I were going to Ash Wednesday Mass and I was preparing to give up meat yet again for Lent.

Anyway, the 40ish days have pretty much concluded – meaning, not only am I going to be eating meat again soon, but we also get to prepare Easter desserts!

This year, I’ll be making a few of my favorite cookie dough truffles or cookie balls – and shaping them like eggs so that they become … voila! Easter Egg Cookie Dough Balls. You can really make these with any of your favorite truffle recipes, so I choose the chocolate chip cookie recipe but dipped in white chocolate (you can do regular chocolate if you like too, they may be harder to decorate though):

cookie dough easter eggs - i crashed the webi

Cookie Dough Easter Eggs

Here’s what you need:

  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 14 oz bag of candy coating

Here’s what you do:

  1. Cream butter and sugar. Add milk and vanilla and mix on high speed with an electric mixer.
  2. Stir in flour on low speed (or by hand) until incorporated. Stir in mini chocolate chips.
  3. Cover and chill dough for 1 hour or overnight.
  4. When dough is firm enough to handle, form dough into 1″ round balls. Then shape into somewhat flattened egg shapes and arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or foil.
  5. Place dough ball-filled sheet in freezer and let chill for  at least 30 minutes.
  6. After cookie dough balls have hardened in the freezer, it’s time to dip them in the melted chocolate! Melt chocolate candy coating in the microwave or according to package directions. Using a fork, dip eggs into melted milk chocolate and coat completely.
  7. Return chocolate-covered balls to parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Chill until set.
  8. Enjoy! They’re pretty awesome.

To decorate:

  • Sprinkles: while melting chocolate is wet on the egg, sprinkle colored sugars or sprinkles over egg.
  • Drizzled chocolate: melt different colored melting chocolate according to package directions – or add food coloring to white chocolate – and use a fork to drizzle colored chocolate over the white chocolate base. If chocolate is too thick to drizzle, add some shortening to thin out chocolate a little. Do not add too much – and do not add water to chocolate! I just drizzled with my fork, but here is some more info on drizzling technique.

There are so many variations on this recipe – you could make them in so many different flavors including Birthday Cake Truffles, Cookies and Cream Truffles, Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles, Baileys Truffles and more! Just choose you favorite, shape them into eggs and you’re done.

 

raw cookie dough balls easter eggs - i crashed the web

Cookie dough is shaped and ready to chill

raw cookie dough balls easter eggs - i crashed the web

be careful – they’re addicting!

raw cookie dough balls easter eggs - i crashed the web

decorate with sprinkles or drizzle with chocolate

Enjoy! What are you baking for Easter? Do you have a favorite truffle recipe?

Home Opener Baseball Dessert: Cookies and Cream Truffles

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 4 Comments

Today is the Tribe Home Opener! I’m super excited that baseball season is back and am looking forward to walking to many games this spring and summer. Last summer, my friend Devin and I had a friendly competition going  to see who could see the most games, and though we both lost count, I’m proud to say that B and I probably hit up at least 15 games.

In honor of Opening Day, last year I shared a list of some of my favorite baseball desserts – so this year I decided to share a new one: Cookies and Cream Truffles! Just buy a red edible color marker and these can easily become baseballs for any Opening Day or Home Opener celebrations.

Indians baseball cookies and cream truffles_labeled

Baseball Home Opener Dessert: Cookies and Cream Truffles

Here’s what you need:

  • 1 (16 0z) package of regular Oreos (don’t be tempted by the double stuff ones – I hear they don’t work as well)
  • 1 (8 oz.) pkg cream cheese, room temperature (aka nice and soft)
  • Chocolate for melting – I used vanilla candy melts but you can probably use chocolate chips as well. These would be good with vanilla or regular/dark chocolate.
Here’s what you do:
    1. Put all the Oreos in your food processor. I may have eaten a few (quality control) so all 16 oz didn’t actually go into the food processor … but you get it. Blend them well until they are very fine crumbs.
    2. Add the cream cheese, one quarter at a time, into the food processor with the crumbs. Mix well until you have a dark mushy (but delicious) blog in the food processor.   When that happens, roll the mixture into small one-inch balls.  Place the balls on parchment paper and freeze for approximately 1 hour or so, or until hardened.
    3. After the balls are hard, melt your chocolate and then dip the little balls.  I like to use a fork and tap it against the side of the bowl to remove the excess chocolate.
    4. Place the dipped balls back on the parchment paper and let cool/dry.
    5. Enjoy!

Feel free to decorate (while wet) with sprinkles or Oreo cookie crumbs. I waited until mine were dry and then drew baseball stitching in honor of the Indians Home Opener. Go Tribe!

baseball cookies and cream truffles

Decorate them as you wish – I put red baseball laces

cookies and cream truffles

 

And I dare you not to sing this while making them:

Baileys Irish Cream Chocolate Truffles

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 3 Comments

Happy Almost St. Patrick’s Day! Last year I made some delicious Murphy’s Stout Cupcakes with an Irish Cream Buttercream Frosting. This year, I was going to make the same thing, but lately I’ve been all about the cake and cookie balls (if you haven’t made the Birthday Cake Truffles or Chocolate Chip Cookie Balls, stop reading and make them immediately. They were DELICIOUS!), so I decided to find some St. Patrick’s Day truffles!

homemade baileys irish cream chocolate truffles for st. patrick's day

The following recipe was okay. They tasted delicious, but honestly, I am not a fan of how they looked. The batter was too sticky and heavy, making it hard to make nice circles.  If you are going for taste – they’re great! Looks? I’m going to try again.

Baileys Irish Cream Chocolate Truffles

Borrowed from this post from Life Love and Sugar.

Here’s what you need:

  • 2 ½ vanilla wafer crumbs (Almost one box of Vanilla Wafers) 
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup corn syrup
  • 1/2 cup Baileys Irish Cream With Caramel
  • 12 oz bag chocolate melting wafers (or chocolate chips … if you use chocolate chips you may need to use some Crisco while you melt just to make it melt smoothly)

Here’s what you do:

  1. Okay, it’s not exact science but add nearly one box of Vanilla Wafers to a blender. I had about 15-20 cookies left in my box (can you say snacktime for later?). Blend completely until you have about 2 ½ – 2¾ cups of vanilla wafer crumbs.
  2. Combine vanilla wafer crumbs and powdered sugar in a bowl until you have a nice powder-like consistency of both ingredients.
  3. Add corn syrup and Baileys to dry ingredients. Mix well until consistency is sticky, yet moldable. It sounds gross, but the consistency reminded me of when I make turkey meatballs.
  4. Let batter sit in fridge for about 15-20 minutes until chilled. Once cool, shape batter into balls and set aside. I put mine in the freezer so they would harden up and not melt when mixed with the warm chocolate. I made about a dozen balls.
  5. Melt chocolate in microwave according to package directions. I did not end up needing the entire package, so I recommend heating up half the chocolate wafers at a time.
  6. Using a fork, dip balls into the melted chocolate and shake off excess chocolate by tapping bottom of fork on the side of the bowl.
  7. Place completed balls on a cookie sheet (I used foil sprayed with Pam on my cookie sheet to prevent sticking).  Top with green sprinkles, if you wish. Let balls dry.
  8. Enjoy!
Put your vanilla wafers in the bender!

Put your vanilla wafers in the blender!

Combine powdered wafer crumbs with powdered sugar. Then add corn syrup!

Combine powdered wafer crumbs with powdered sugar before adding syrup and Baileys.

baileys irish cream truffles

Birthday Cake Truffles

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 1 Comment

Our friend Dave turned 30 this week. We celebrated over the weekend with beers, pizza and other fun (including owning the jukebox) at one of his favorite bars, Map Room, and are going to be heading down to Cincinnati soon for some more fun.

a few of us out this weekend

a few of us out this weekend

Since there will be a few of us making the trip to Cincinnati, I decided to bake some goodies to bring along the way. And since it’s his birthday, what better excuse to make birthday cake balls, or birthday cake truffles (which sounds way classier than balls).

If you have a birthday coming up – or just want to enjoy some cake batter balls yourself – I highly recommend you make these. They are awesome. They taste like cake batter. And have no eggs. Seriously –  if you like cake batter, you must make these right now. I only hope they make it to this weekend and I don’t end up enjoying them all before then!

birthday cake truffles

Birthday Cake Truffles

(slightly modified from The Girl Who Ate Everything)

Here’s what you need:

For the truffles:

  • 1 ½ c flour
  • 1 ¼ c yellow cake mix
  • ½ c unsalted butter, softened
  • ½ c white sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 4 tablespoons milk
  • 2-3 tablespoons rainbow sprinkles

For the coating:

  • 2 c. white chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon Crisco
  • 5 tablespoons yellow cake mix
  • Sprinkles for topping

Here’s what you do:

For the cake batter balls:

  1. Cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla.
  2. Add cake mix and flour and combine thoroughly.
  3. Depending on consistency, add 4-5 tablespoons of milk. Batter should be the consistency of dough so that you can form small balls with your hands.
  4. Stir in sprinkles and evenly distribute with your hands or a spatula.
  5. Roll dough into small, one inch balls and place on a foil- or parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Chill dough balls in refrigerator for 30 minutes or freezer for 15 minutes. 

For the coating:

  1. While dough balls are chilling, melt white chocolate chips in the microwave with Crisco. Microwave on high for 2 minutes, stirring every 30-45 minutes until melted.
  2. Once melted, add cake mix, stirring well to ensure a smooth consistency.
  3. Using a toothpick or fork, dip cake dough balls into the melted chocolate and shake off excess chocolate by tapping bottom of fork on the side of the bowl.
  4. Place completed cake dough ball on the cookie sheet and top with sprinkles. Repeat until all balls are done.
birthday cake truffles

dip the cake ball into the melted chocolate with a fork, dip excess chocolate on side of bowl

birthday cake truffles

place chocolate covered cake ball onto parchment paper, add sprinkles

birthday cake truffles

Enjoy your completed truffles

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 1 Comment

Today, in addition to watching the Browns game, doing laundry, going for a run and doing some work, I was a baking and cooking machine. I roasted tomatoes, made fresh pesto, baked banana bread and even made some cookie dough balls. That’s right – cookie dough balls. Who needs cake balls when you have these tasty treats? And of course, they’re egg free – so not only delicious but a safe way (and perfect excuse) to indulge in the best part of baking – cookie dough!

chocolate covered cookie dough bites

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

(borrowed from this recipe)

Here’s what you need:

  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/3 cup milk (I used 1% but may try almond milk next time)
  • 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 14 oz bag of milk chocolate candy coating

Here’s what you do:

  1. Cream butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Add milk and vanilla and mix on high speed with an electric mixer (or your beloved KitchenAid).
  2. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed (or by hand) until incorporated. Stir in mini chocolate chips.
  3. Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.
  4. When dough is firm enough to handle, form dough into 1″ round balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
  5. Place dough ball-filled sheet in freezer and let chill for  at least 30 minutes (I went for a run and let mine chill for about an hour).
  6. After cookie dough balls have hardened in the freezer, it’s time to dip them in the melted chocolate! Melt chocolate candy coating in the microwave or according to package directions. Using a toothpick, dip cookie balls into melted milk chocolate and coat completely.
  7. Return chocolate-covered balls to parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Chill until set.
  8. Enjoy! They’re pretty awesome.

chocolate chip cookie dough balls