Caramel Cheesecake

Birthday #2 that I baked for was my brother's. My brother has never been a sweets kind of guy (which is funny being as my dad and myself have huge sweet teeth), he never really eats cake or cookies which is why I bake in such small batches; because it's only myself and my dad eating them. But one thing that my brother does like is cheesecake. So when I asked him what I could make him for his birthday, he requested the same thing that he did last year: caramel cheesecake. I was really happy because I've been wanting to make a cheesecake again for a while now, and because he requested the same kind of cheesecake last year, I knew I already had a great recipe that wouldn't disappoint.

For this recipe, I actually did something that I NEVER do, and that's take a recipe that didn't have any reviews for it and also from a site that I've never visited before. That's nearly taboo for me to do. I never try a recipe that doesn't have any reviews at all for it because I don't know if it's reliable or not and I hate the very rare occasions when I have to throw something out because it didn't turn out well. But the recipe sounded good and I put my faith in it, and thankfully, I'm very glad I did! This cheesecake is absolutely delicious with not only brown sugar adding to the caramel flavor, but also with a homemade caramel sauce swirled right in. I serve mine with extra homemade caramel sauce, but in actuality, it doesn't even really need it. The cheesecake is delicious on it's own.

Also, I've added a new recipe archive page to my blog that holds every single recipe and links to each individual recipe blog page for easy access. I realize the Blog Archive tab does somewhat sort of the same thing, but my recipe archive also sorts the recipes by type of dessert, making it even easier. Huzzah!

Rich Caramel Cheesecake (from That's My Home)
Makes 1 10-inch cheesecake

For the crust:

• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (I used vanilla wafers)

For the caramel:

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

For the filling:

• 4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
  
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  

Directions:

1. Make the crust: Combine the butter and crumbs in a medium bowl, mixing with a fork. Press into the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan. (Keep in mind that this is only enough for a thin crust on the bottom only. If you'd like your crust to go up the sides as well, double the recipe.)

2. Make the caramel: Combine the sugar and water in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir well. Cover with a lid and cook until the sugar turns a medium amber color, about 3 1/2 minutes after the mixture comes to a boil. Use a wet pastry brush every once in a while to brush down any sugar that starts to crystallize on the sides. (After the sugar starts to boil, do not stir it anymore. Simply swirl the pan to mix. Once the sugar starts turning color, I'd suggest to just take the lid off and swirl almost constantly until it reaches the desired color. Remember to watch it like a hawk!!)
   
3. Remove from the heat and stir for 30 seconds. Slowly stir in the cream using a long, wooden spatula, being careful to avoid splatters. The caramel will hiss and bubble furiously when the cream hits it. (Also, it will let off a ton of hot steam, so be careful!) If the sugar begins to crystallize or harden in the bottom of the pan, return the pan to the heat and stir constantly until the caramel becomes smooth. Set aside.

4. (Now is the time when you want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.) Make the cheesecake: Beat the cream cheese and both sugars at medium speed using an electric mixer until soft and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl when necessary.

5. Add the vanilla and salt and mix to combine. Add the eggs one at a time, beating on the lowest speed of the mixer until just incorporated.

6. Scrape down the bowl once more and mix again just until everything is fully incorporated. Do not overbeat. Pour two-thirds of the batter over the crust. Beat the caramel sauce into the remaining one-third of batter. Pour the caramel batter over the plain batter and swirl mixtures using a rubber spatula.

7. Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes (I baked mine for 55 and I would suggest baking for at least this amount, or even up to 60 minutes), or until the edges are firm but the middle still wiggles. Remove from the oven and cool. Chill. (I cooled mine at room temperature for 30 minutes. Remember to chill your cheesecake for at least 4 hours before serving.)

* If you'd like to serve your cheesecake with extra caramel sauce, simply make the recipe for the caramel sauce above again, or double the recipe to make at the same time. If you double it, just remember to use half in the cheesecake batter and save half for serving.

Daring Bakers May 2010: Pièce Montée (aka: Croquembouche)

This is my very first Daring Bakers challenge! Woohoo, exciting! What's not so exciting? That every single one of my pictures came out blurry. Seriously, no lie. I apologize profusely for that. My camera is unfortunately not the greatest, and for some reason, I can never tell if a photo is blurry or not until I upload it on to my computer. Most look completely fine on the preview screen on my camera, but then boom, I upload them and realize how horribly blurry they actually are. I did my best to sharpen and fix them, but just know the photos in this post aren't going to be that great.
But more importantly, onto the actual recipe. When I first found out what I was going to be doing for my first Daring Bakers Challenge, fear came over me like no other. The look on my face would have probably been hilarious had it been captured on camera. I'm not exactly sure why I was so nervous. But the more I thought about the recipe, the more excited I got. A pièce montée is simply French for "assembled (or mounted) piece" and can refer to any decorated centerpiece dessert. More specifically, we made a croquembouche, another French word stemming from 'croque en bouche' meaning "crunch in the mouth." It's basically a bunch of cream puffs stacked up into a cone-like mountain of deliciousness and then decorated. I've been wanting to try my hand at cream puffs for a while now, so this was my chance. I apologize again, as I know that mine doesn't look very impressive. In my defense, however, usually people use a cone made of parchment paper or the like and then coat the cream puffs in a kind of sugar syrup or caramel and then just place them upside down in the cone, filling it up. The parchment pretty much does the work for them. I didn't have any and (admittedly) was too lazy to go out and get some, so I stacked them free hand.

The recipe itself wasn't too difficult. Definitely time consuming, but I do think in the end it was worth it. What's awesome about this recipe is that it doesn't require any special ingredients. They're all pretty much standard pantry ingredients. I had two friends over to help me, and we had a pretty good amount of fun. We had even more fun devouring them as soon as I was done taking pictures, ha ha. I went with the traditional vanilla pastry cream and I thought that the melted semisweet chocolate was a great compliment. I'd love to make cream puffs again, but try different fillings and coatings. Yum!

Croquembouche
Yields about 28 cream puffs

For the vanilla crème patissiere (pastry cream):

• 1 cup whole milk, divided (I used 2% since that's all I had, and it worked out fine)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• (I also added about a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla butter & nut flavoring)

Directions

1. Dissolve the cornstarch in a 1/4 cup of the milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil; remove from heat.
2. Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the milk and cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of the boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
3. Return the remaining milk to a boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing to whisk.
4. Continue whisking (extremely important so that the eggs don't solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. (I cooked mine over medium high heat and mine became thick extremely fast, and pretty much went from liquid to extremely thick within a couple seconds. Just be careful about that!) Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.

5. Pour the cream into a stainless steel bowl/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface against the cream. Chill for at least 6 hours or overnight.

For the pâte à choux (cream puff dough):

• 3/4 cup water
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs, divided
  

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (I used foil.)
2. Combine the water, butter, salt, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. When it comes to a boil, remove from the heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.
3. Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. (This happened very quickly for me.) Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon for 1 minute to cool slightly.
4. Stir in 3 of the eggs one at a time, waiting until each egg is completely combined before adding the next. The batter will go from appearing loose and shiny to like lightly-buttered mashed potatoes.
5. Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip. (I just piped without a tip, being as the bag had a large, round opening.) Pipe the choux about an inch apart on the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch tall and 1 inch wide. Use a clean finger dipped in water to press down on any tips that have formed on the top of the choux when piping. You want them to be shaped like a ball with a smooth, curved top.

6. With the remaining egg, make an egg wash by placing the egg in a small bowl and lightly beating it with a pinch of salt. Brush the tops of the choux with the egg wash. Bake the choux at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

For the chocolate glaze:

• 8 ounces finely chopped chocolate (I used semisweet, but feel free to use whatever kind you like.)

Directions

1. Melt the chocolate in a microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning. Use the best quality chocolate you can afford. Use immediately.

Assembling the croquembouche:

1. Using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux using either the same round tip for piping the choux or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet.

2. Dip the top and bottom of the choux in the chocolate glaze. Dipping the top will act as decoration and dipping the bottom will allow for the glue to hold the choux together. Start assembling on your plate/stand using the largest choux first. You may want to practice building with unglazed choux first, seeing what fits together best.
3. Continue dipping and adding the choux in levels, building up into a cone shape.
4. Once you have finished stacking, feel free to decorate with the remaining glaze, a sprinkle of powdered sugar, flowers, ribbons, etc. Have fun and enjoy!
   

The May 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump's Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Chocolate Birthday Cake with Strawberry Filling

In my last post I mentioned that I've been baking like crazy here recently since I had two birthdays to prepare for plus the Daring Bakers challenge, so here's the cake from one of the birthdays. One of my close friend's birthday was just recently and I was delighted when I asked her if I could make her a cake and she said yes! I was a little nervous about making the cake and picking out the perfect recipe. I certainly didn't want to disappoint my friend, especially on her birthday! She at first told me that she just wanted a cake with strawberries in it, but after prodding her for more information, she finally decided on a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and strawberry filling. "Great," I said! I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I have a strawberry patch in my backyard. It's not very big, there aren't multiple rows or anything, but it's substantial enough to put my family into strawberry mania during the summer. So of course, I turned to my backyard for the strawberries, which was great.

I think I went through multiple cake recipes before I finally settled on one. I decided that I wanted to make a three layer cake, and finally thought of this cake that I've seen members of the baking group "The Cake Slice Bakers" bake before. Again, I was nervous. Mayonnaise? Blegh, I hate the stuff. But I've seen it in multiple cake recipes before and everyone always says that it's not detectable at all and makes the cake extremely moist. So I had to put my faith in it. The filling stayed simple and easy, by just cutting up strawberries from my backyard and mixing them with some sugar and layering them in. For the frosting, I wanted to go with possibly my favorite type of American buttercream: a chocolate frosting that uses melted unsweetened chocolate in it. American buttercreams can be extremely sweet what with all the powdered sugar in them, but by adding the unsweetened chocolate, it seems to negate the sweetness and just leaves you with a delectable, chocolatey frosting. I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and snagged it immediately.

So...was the cake okay? Yup! It was great and was very well receieved! Here is myself heaving a sigh of relief. The cake was, as promised, very moist, soft, and chocolatey, the frosting was perfect, and the strawberries went well with the cake. My friend was happy, so I was happy. (Also, apologies for not having a picture of the inside. I didn't want to impose on my friend's birthday cake, ha ha.)

Triple-Layer Chocolate Cake (from Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne)
Makes 3 9-inch cake layers

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (my friend isn't a fan of cinnamon, so I omitted)
• 2 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup milk
• 1 1/4 cups hot, strongly brewed coffee
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mayonnaise (not low fat or fat free)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 9-inch round cake pans. (I actually only have two 9-inch cake pans, but used a 9-inch springform pan as my third, and it worked out just fine.) Line the base of each pan with parchment paper. (I HIGHLY suggest you do this. I didn't have any and so I sprayed and floured my cake pans but the cakes were quite difficult to get out [though still came out in one piece]...so use parchment.)
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
   
3. Place the chopped chocolate in a large, heatproof bowl. (I would suggest one that has a spout.) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer. Pour the hot milk and coffee over the chocolate. Let stand for a minute, then whisk until smooth. Let the mocha liquid cool slightly.
4. In a mixer bowl, beat together the eggs, mayonnaise, and vanilla until well blended. Gradually beat in the sugar.
   
5. Add the dry ingredients and mocha liquid alternately in two or three additions, beating just until smooth and well blended. Divide the batter among the three prepared pans.
6. Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Let the cakes cool in their pans for 10-15 minutes before unmolding onto a wire rack and carefully peeling off the paper. Leave to cool completely.

Instant Fudge Frosting (from Smitten Kitchen)
Makes about 5 cups, enough to frost and fill a 3-layer cake. I only made half of this recipe, and it was just enough to frost the outside of the 3-layer cake, so keep that in mind.

Ingredients

• 6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
• 4 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened (I used salted)
• 6 tablespoons half-and-half or whole milk (I only ended up using 1 tablespoon in my halved version, which would be 2 tablespoons for this full recipe)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Place all of the ingredients in a food processor (I just used my stand mixer) and pulse until incorporated, then process until the frosting is smooth.
   
   

Strawberry Filling
This is only an estimate, as I didn't really measure anything.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups chopped, fresh strawberries
• 2-3 tablespoons sugar

Directions

1. Place the chopped strawberries in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the sugar, to taste, over the strawberries and stir to coat. Allow the strawberries to sit for a few hours in the refrigerator to allow the natural juices of the strawberries to come out.

To assemble the cake:

1. Situate pieces of parchment paper in a circle around your cake stand or serving plate. Place one layer of the cake on top of the parchment. Put half of the strawberries on the layer, being careful not to place them too close to the edge. Lay the second cake layer on top of the first.
   
   
2. Place the second half of the strawberries on the second layer just as the first, and then top with the final layer. Press down slightly to make sure the cake is secure.
3. Frost the sides and top of the cake, and then if desired, run your knife or spatula under hot water and use it to smooth the frosting. (I like a rustic look, so I didn't do this.)
   
   
4. Pull the parchment straight out to leave a nice, clean edge. Decorate your cake as desired and serve. The cake is best eaten the day it is made (due to the strawberries).
   

Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Cookies

So finally, here is recipe #3. It's been crazy here recently with me baking up a storm, what with preparing for two birthdays as well as the upcoming Daring Bakers Challenge. But of course, I always love an excuse to bake! I came across this recipe when I was actually just looking for a spice cookie recipe. I came to a conclusion that there must not really be any spice cookies worthwhile that didn't contain molasses in it, something I didn't have, so gave up on it. But the search led me to this cookie, and I'm very happy it did! I've seen recipes for "Everything" cookies before, but my picky-eating-ness would always spot multiple things in the recipe that I wasn't a fan of. Either that, or I found that the recipe just didn't have enough ingredients in them to warrant being called "Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink." But this recipe on Allrecipes sounded great, with a lot of things I like, from everything to oatmeal and cornflakes to walnuts and chocolate chips, had great reviews, and used spices that I had been wanting to use.

The everything! (Also, apologies for all the brand-name dropping. It wasn't intended.)

These cookies have great flavor and all of the elements work really well. The poster of the recipe said that by underbaking the cookies slightly would yield a nice chewy cookie, and she was right. The gooeyness firms up when you let them cool and you're left with a chewy center, but still a nice crunch from the ingredients. I do have to admit that I left out the coconut since I'm usually not a fan, but I think it'd work really well in this cookie and I'd be willing to give it a try. I would advise, however, to maybe cut down on the sugar slightly or add less chocolate chips. My cookies turned out quite sweet, even for someone with a monster sweet tooth like me. I also might try them at some point without any spices, as I think they'd be great too. But I'd definitely suggest trying the recipe as is first, since it really is a great recipe.

Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Cookies (from Allrecipes)
Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground mace (I didn't have this, so I substituted with just an extra pinch of nutmeg)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup cornflakes cereal, crumbled (I used frosted cornflakes so they wouldn't get soggy in the cookie dough)
• 3 cups rolled oats (I used quick-cooking, since that's all I had)
• 1/2 cup flaked coconut (I omitted)
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and cloves; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in milk and vanilla. Gradually mix in the sifted ingredients until well blended. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the cornflakes, oats, coconut, chocolate chips, and walnuts. (I just used my mixer on the lowest speed.) Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls, and place 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets; flatten slightly. (I refrigerated my cookie dough over night.)
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheets 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. (I baked my refrigerated dough for 10 minutes, so I'd suggest baking unrefrigerated dough for only 8.)
   

Almond Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

So here's recipe #2 in my attempt to post the three recipes I made while my laptop had died on me as quickly as possible. It's funny. When I made these, it actually wasn't because I expressly desired to eat a cupcake, but merely because I really wanted to make some since I hadn't in a long time. I thought about maybe a chocolate cupcake at first but decided I wanted something different and came to an almond cupcake. Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE almond extract? I do, really and truly. I have to admit that I was apprehensive the first time I bought it. I always seemed to read over reviews claiming that the almond in the recipe was too strong, so I came to the conclusion that this stuff could quickly become overpowering, which I don't like in a recipe. But I thought I'd give the extract a try anyway since I saw it so many times when looking through recipes. To my delight, when a first opened the bottle and gave it a whiff, I recognized the flavor! It was just like those Chinese marble cookies from Wegman's that I love! Sure enough, when I tasted it, that was indeed the flavor and my love for almond extract (which I don't find overpowering at all) has been going strong since.

When I began searching for a recipe, I found that it's kind of hard to find just a plain almond cupcake recipe. Most of the recipes I found paired the almond with something else, like chocolate or fruit or what not, or they used actual almond meal in the recipe and I didn't want that. I just wanted a nice, plain almond flavor using extract. Finally I came across this recipe on Recipezaar and it sounded like a winner. I did, however, double the almond extract. At first I was going to pair these cupcakes with an almond Swiss meringue buttercream, but eventually decided against it. Even though I have a love for almond extract, I thought almond on almond might not be exciting enough. In the end, I decided to go with this chocolate buttercream from Joy the Baker that I've been dying to try. I ended up with a nice and tender almond cupcake that was paired with a very delicious chocolate buttercream, neither flavors overpowering the other. And, I finally got to use my 1M tip! Hurrah! Now on to the recipe.

Almond Cupcakes (adapted from Recipezaar)
Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 teaspoons almond extract (If you don't like as much almond flavor, you can reduce the extract back down to it's original measurement, 1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 12-cup cupcake tins with liners.
2. Cream the butter at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and extracts and beat until combined.
3. Combine the baking powder, salt, and flour in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined.
4. Divide the batter in between 24 cups and bake the cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17-20 minutes. (I seem to remember my batch taking only about 17 minutes to bake, so make sure to watch them.) Allow the cupcakes to cool for a couple minutes in the pans and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

The "Best" Chocolate Buttercream (from Joy the Baker)
Makes enough to generously frost 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (I used salted butter)
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt (I didn't add this since I used salted butter, but in the end I did end up using another small pinch of salt)
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup heavy cream (I would halve this...more notes below)
  
• 2/3 cup Ovaltine
  

Directions

1. Cream together the butter, cocoa powder, and salt. The mixture will be very thick. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the sides and then add the powdered sugar. Turn the mixer on low and mix in the powdered sugar slowly while adding the milk and vanilla extract. As the sugar incorporates, raise the speed of the mixer and beat the frosting. Beat until smooth.
2. In a 2-cup measuring glass, mix together the heavy cream and Ovaltine. Turn the mixer on medium speed and stream in the Ovaltine mixture slowly until you have reached the desired consistency. You may not need the full amount of cream and Ovaltine. (In my experience, I ended up barely needing any of it. I actually ended up adding a bit more Ovaltine to my buttercream, so I would highly suggest halving the cream but keeping the Ovaltine amount the same.)

Oreo Truffles

I've been going through a bit of a row with my laptop here recently. About a week ago, it started acting up. Windows would load just fine but...nothing I clicked would come up! Every once in a while, a fair few folders would come up, but programs, the internet, task manager...even my shut down button wouldn't work! Admittedly, I spend way too much time on my laptop, so you can imagine how upset I was when this happened. But finally, I saved all of my files and whatnot and my brother was able to reset my computer back to the way it was when I first got it. Restoring my files was pretty simple and finally I've got my laptop back to the way it was. Yay! I've actually made three recipes since and wasn't able to put them up, so now I'm working on posting them as quickly as possible.

If you haven't made Oreo truffles or at least had them before, you need to make them. NOW. Seriously, scroll down and save the recipe and make them as soon as possible. Honestly, everything about these things is amazing. They're delicious, easy to make, require only three ingredients, and best of all, even though they're so simple, they are huge crowd pleasers. I made these for my last day of Film and Lit class, and they were devoured. The insides are nice and soft and have that wonderful Oreo taste and even though you use cream cheese to make the filling, you can't taste it, which is great for me being as I'm not the biggest fan of cream cheese. I think the white chocolate coating is a great compliment too. I've seen them covered with other types of chocolate, and had one that was coated in semi-sweet before and honestly, I think white chocolate is best. Believe it or not, the sweetness isn't overwhelming at all. But feel free to coat them in whatever chocolate you like. Just try them!

Oreo Truffles (from some unknown maker of this amazing recipe...I honestly wish I had come up with this, ha ha)
Yields about or a little over 50 truffles. It depends on how big you make them. My batch yielded 52. If you make them smaller, you could even make up to 60 of them.

Ingredients

• 1 regular package Oreo cookies (Feel free to try out different kinds. Most recipes tell you not to use Double Stuf, but I have before and it's worked out just fine. Try mint, Golden Oreos, or what have you.)
• 1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
• About 1 1/2 to 2 (12 oz.) bags of white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Crush the entire package of Oreo cookies into small crumbs. (I use a food processor and this works best. If you don't have one, you can put the cookies in double layered ziploc bags [the cookies will break through just one bag, so double up to avoid that] and use your hands or a rolling pin to crush them. You can also just put them into a bowl and crush them with a fork if you want.) Place the crumbs into a large bowl of an electric mixer and add the cream cheese. Mix until completely combined.
2. If desired, refrigerate the mixture, covered, for several hours or overnight for easier handling. Roll the mixture into about 1-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet to set back into the refrigerator to firm up.
3. Melt about half of 1 (12 oz.) bag of white chocolate at a time. Place the chips into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Remove the bowl and stir. If the chips are not completely melted, place back into the microwave for 10-15 seconds. Remove and stir. If there are only a few little pieces left, do NOT put back in the microwave. Just stir and the heat from the mixture will melt these. (If you let white chocolate get too hot, the chocolate will seize, and once that happens, there's pretty much almost nothing you can do to bring it back, so be careful!!)
   
4. Coat the Oreo balls in the white chocolate, melting more chocolate when needed. For ease and a nice, round coating, use a fork to coat the balls. Place one ball in the white chocolate and use the fork to scoop up white chocolate to coat the top and side. Carefully slide your fork underneath the truffle, lift up, and shake slightly, letting the excess chocolate drip through the prongs. Wipe any remaining chocolate on the bottom of the fork on the side of the bowl and place the truffle on parchment or wax paper, or aluminum foil. If any patches on the truffle are left uncovered when you put it down, quickly use your fork and patch those places with a little white chocolate. Let the chocolate harden. Repeat for remaining truffles.
5. Serve and enjoy! Store any remaining truffles in a bowl in the refrigerator.