Cookie Dough Truffles
1 stick of butter, room temp
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste because I love the flavor)
2 cups flour
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips
1 bag of quality milk chocolate chips (I avoid Nestle as I find it waxy)
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp dry instant espresso (I used decaf) or 2 tsp brewed espresso
Make sure the butter has been out for 30 minutes so it's soft. Add the brown sugar and vanilla extract (or bean paste in my case!) into a bowl.
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| Depth of flavor already present. |
Cream those ingredients together. Which really means just blending them with a hand mixer on a low setting.
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| Thick and sticky. |
The base mixture then gets even creamier by adding sweetened condensed milk.
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| You gotta love a random piece of cow clip art. |
Add the milk and mix together with the hand mixer until blended.
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| What an invention - this sweet, thick milk. |
Slowly add the flour with the mixer on a low speed until it's fully incorporated. Then you're done with the electric mixer.
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| Already looks like cookie dough, but without eggs. Nice and fluffy. |
Seeing as this dough mixture is going to be made into relatively small-sized candy pieces, large chocolate chips would not be optimal. But the minis are perfect!
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| Who doesn't love anything tiny? It's instant fun. And you feel like a giant. |
Toss the mini chips into the batter and get those biceps ready for some working out.
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| Final decadent ingredient added. |
The reason you hand mix it when the chips go in is because you don't want the electric mixer to chop them up into unrecognizable bits of brown dust. So get that wooden spoon in there, stir it up and don't forget to break the handle in half. (Wait, what was that I just said? Break the spoon? Seems unorthodox.) Well, I suppose that is just an option and you don't actually have to do it, but that's what happened to me and I write very autobiographically. (Plus I found it absolutely hilarious and of course had to share my misfortune if it gets a laugh.) Seems I should have picked a slightly sturdier spoon. Which is what I did next.
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| I really liked that spoon too. I got three of them for free, on different visits, to a place called Basketville in Lancaster, PA some years ago. |
After the batter is fully mixed by hand with your other, sturdier, Pampered Chef wooden spoon that you didn't get for free, nor did you break by brute force, you're ready to begin scooping. I have a small scooper, tablespoon size I suspect.
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| The scooper makes it easy to get uniformly sized portions in repetition. |
Roll the measured scoop in your hand quickly until you have smooth, spherical shapes. Drop them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. And into the fridge (or I used the freezer) they will go for a couple hours. So they can harden before they are dipped in chocolate.
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| Line 'em up! Not a lot of space needed, as they aren't getting baked. |
Let's pretend two hours went by in a matter of seconds. (Which it didn't for me.) Time to make the chocolate ganache coating.
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| You can use dark if you like. Or I suppose peanut butter chips or white for that matter. |
One tip for chocolate is that if you add a little coffee, it brings out the real essence of the chocolate. I had some decaf instant espresso, so I didn't have to actually make espresso. Which I do love to do. So if you have that instead, that's fine. I had this from when I made tiramisu. Which I'll need to make again so you all can see it.
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| It's also good just for making a cup of quick espresso. Europeans don't mind instant coffee sometimes, unlike Americans it seems. |
To set up the double boiler to melt the chocolate, add water to a pot, not so it touches the bowl though, and on top of it, place a glass bowl. Turn up the heat.
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| Bowl should be big enough to extend outside the boundaries of the pot it will sit upon. |
When the bowl is warm, add in chips, espresso and cream.
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| Adding the coffee will make you go from household cook to gourmet chef. |
Stir the chocolate with a small spatula as it melts, until smooth. Pull the chilled dough out of the freezer and drop one by one into the hot, liquid chocolate. Flip around until well coated.
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| Man overboard! Floating in a sea of chocolate waves. |
They say to use two forks if you don't have those fancy tools, which I don't. Pull up the truffle and shift it back and forth on each fork as you shake off and tap the excess chocolate from the bottom.
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| Untouched by human hands. |
Place each ganache-coated truffle back onto the parchment or onto wax paper.
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| What a glossy shine! And relatively neat. |
Resist the urge to eat them right then and there. They aren't ready yet. Put them into the refrigerator for at least an hour to set up.
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| Nice and chilled. And smooth. |
Peel a truffle off the paper and serve any way you'd like. With a cup of coffee would be nice. Store the rest in the fridge, because the ganache coating will get softer the longer you leave them out.
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| To impress you, I put one in a tiny dish. |
Thought you might want to see the inside as well, so I sliced one up. Completely creamy and smooth, with crunchy mini chips. Oh, to die for!
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| One in a sitting is enough for me, but sweets aren't my weakness. |
Believe me when I say that anyone you know who loves cookie dough will LOVE these truffles, without a doubt. They are rich, chewy and utterly divine. One of my coworkers IMed me immediately after he ate one and said he simply had to have the recipe, because he had "a moment." (Of candy bliss.) He was decidedly going to make them with his wife for their delayed Valentine's dinner on Wednesday. (This is what happens when you have young kids it seems. Schedules have to be flexible!) Good to know it's never too late to impress your Valentine with some homemade sweet treats.
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