When chocolate truffles meet Oreo cookies

Last night I was in the mood for experimenting. Chocolate-experimenting to be more specific. I had this basic dark chocolate truffle recipe at home but after a, lets say, bittersweet week that wasn’t quite enough. I bought some dark chocolate, some milk chocolate, some cocoa powder, heavy cream, oreo cookies, coconut milk, a mini bottle of rum, vanila extract and cinamon powder.
What came out from all of this?
Super rich full of flavour truffles! (:

I began following the original recipe by melting the cream, adding to the chocolate (I replaced 1/4 of the dark chocolate bar for 1/4  of milk chocolate)  mixing it all. Then I separated the mixture into 3 different little bowls where in one of them I added a tea spoon of coconut milk, on the other one I added a tea spoon of rum and finally on the last one I added a little drop of vanila extract. After stirring them I placed the 3 bowls in the fridge and left it for around an hour. Meanwhile I put 4 oreo cookies on a little plate, took the filling out and crushed them into crumbs (I used my hands but If you have a food processor, even better) leaving some tiny pieces as well. Can you see where I am getting?

To roll them I separated the cocoa powder into two plates in which one of them I added a pinch of cinamon. I rolled a few of them in the oreo crumbs, the others in cocoa powder and then I rolled the ones left in the cocoa-cinamon powder.

They came out lovely (:  my favourite one was the coconut-oreo ones. Next time I’m thinking about trying peanut butter or dulce de leche!

Here follows the classic dark chocolate truffles recipe so you can create your own ones:

Ingredients:
5 oz (140 grams) of good quality dark chocolate
1/4 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt

Cocoa powder or chopped nuts for rolling

Directions:

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place into a small bowl. Heat cream, salt, and liqueur (if using) over medium heat until bubbles began to form along the edges. Pour cream over chocolate and let sit for a couple of minutes. Stir chocolate until smooth. If there are still unmelted pieces, microwave in 10-15 second bursts, stirring in between until all pieces have melted.

Scrap down the sides of the bowl and place in the fridge for 45 minutes to an hour. Once completely cooled, use a buttered melon baller, spoon, or small dough scoop to portion the chocolate in ~1 Tablespoon balls. (I cleaned up the shape by placing the ball of chocolate into my buttered palm and lightly rolling with the spoon.) If you have problems with the chocolate becoming too soft while you work, place the bowl in the freezer for ~10 minutes and then continue.

Place the truffle into cocoa powder (or chopped nuts, oreo crumbs) and roll to coat. Store in the fridge in an airtight container.

cookies s’more bars

I’m living in Brazil at the moment and I have been finding it difficult to procure certain ingredients for some of my recipes. You can’t really find graham crackers around here, nor double cream, peanut butter, buttermilk, golden syrup, rasberries, root beer, jalapenos, monteray jack cheese or PROPER cheddar  amongst a lot of other things. You can find replacements but sometimes they don’t work very well (marshmallow cream/fluff for example). Yesterday I found myself craving s’mores so I decided to go to the local supermarket to see what I could find that would work with the recipe I had at home.  It went pretty well and I only  had to change two things on the recipe. Instead of the graham crackers I used crushed oreo cookies and I also left the marshmallow layer out because marshmallow cream in Brazil is not really like the Fluff we have back in the UK. The real marshmallow Fluff stays put through the whole baking process while the brazilian version cooks through and disappears into the batter. Once the bars were ready I topped with marshmallow just before serving and they turned out to be just as delicious as the traditional ones.

Here follows the original recipe, if you want to make my version of those just leave out the marshmallow layer (:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup chocolate sandwich cookie crumbs (i.e. crumbs of about 10 Oreos)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 king-sized Hershey’s milk chocolate bars
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff

Some baking sheet or aluminium foil

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 176°C (350°F). In an 8-inch square baking tray, place a big square of baking sheet or aluminum foil covering the bottom of the pan and up to the edge leaving some extra bits overhanging. Grase the foil or baking sheet. The overhanging foil or sheet will make it easy to remove the bars from the pan after baking and cooling. (my baking tray sticks, so those steps are crucial to me. if you have a good tray you can trust, you could just grease it without using any paper or foil).

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until fluffy and pale yellow (2-3 minutes). Beat in the egg and vanilla. In a small, separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cookie crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until just combined. Divide the dough roughly in half, placing half the dough in your prepared pan and the other half in the fridge to chill until you’re ready for it.

Use the back of a spoon sprayed with cooking spray and to press and spread the dough in the pan until it covers the bottom of the pan in an even layer (you might want to be really careful if you are using a baking sheet). Place the chocolate bars side by side over the dough (if they fit; if not, break them and arrange) such that you have a full single layer of chocolate (about 1/4 inch thick). Glop on marshmallow creme and use a greased offset spatula to spread it evenly across the candy bars. Take the remaining dough out of the fridge and place it on top of the marshmallow layer (to do so, take a small handful at a time and flatten it into a “shingle” in greased fingertips. Lay these side by side over the top. They’re a little sticky so it takes some fiddling, but just clean your fingers off if the dough starts sticking to them too much and continue).

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool completely in pan before gently using the overhang of the foil sling to lift the bars out of the pan and place them on a cutting board to slice. When ready to serve, heat each bar in the microwave for about 25-30 seconds. Store extras in an airtight container.

Enjoy! x