Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

For my first post, I chose to make these little truffles. The recipe was pretty straight forward, it looked easy enough. I just forgot one important thing--I hate making truffles. I haven't made them in so long, I guess I just repressed that particular memory. Freshman year of high school, I made these Oreo truffles for one party, but they're so freaking delicious that people kept asking me to make them for other parties or even paying me for them. I can make and roll the filling no problem, but dipping them in the chocolate is just the biggest pain in the tuchas. I'm so bad at melting chocolate that I'm probably cursed. I even use a double boiler like a fancy person! But my first batch of melted chocolate seized up. I thought, this is so thick, what could I add that would make it nicer? For some inexplicable reason I added corn syrup. Never add corn syrup. So then I made my loving father go to the store and pick up another bag of chocolate chips, which I overheated. Thanks to this lovely article I was able to salvage it enough to finish the rest of the truffles. (I added more melted chocolate and some vegetable oil). So they're pretty ugly, but they ended up getting good reviews!

They were very yummy

I was also tickled to discover that yesterday was National Chocolate Chip Day. How festive!

This is recipe from Annie's Eats. I love her blog so much. Her recipes always turn out great and she has such a wide variety of things, so she's sort of my go-to. A lot of what I'll make this summer will likely be hers, but I use cheaper ingredients and more shortcuts.

Cookie Dough Truffles
Ingredients

8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
2¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
1½ lbs chocolate
Mini chocolate chips (for garnish)

Directions
This could easily be done with an electric hand mixer, but I prefer the luxury of a stand mixer (because I'm "dainty*"). So first, put your butter and sugar in the bowl and mix on relatively high speed for a couple minutes until it's pretty fluffy. More than just combined, fluffy. Then mix in the flour, SC milk and vanilla. Finally, throw in the chocolate chips. As it is now, the filling is too soft to be rolled. It'll just stick to everything and make a mess. So put the bowl in the fridge and let it get more workable while you lick the beaters and watch Netflix.

Now it's time to make the filling into cute little balls. I use my handy dandy cookie scooper so the truffles are all relatively uniform in size. Line your trays with wax paper or aluminum foil, then scoop away! I find that it's best to use two trays for truffles, especially if it's hot or humid, for reasons which will become evident later. So once you have all your filling scooped, they'll go back into the fridge or freezer, depending on where there's space, and go watch more Netflix.

Now it's dipping time! The original recipe calls for chopped chocolate, but I just find it so much easier and cheaper to use the rest of the chocolate chips plus another bag (don't forget to set aside some chips if you plan on garnishing). So put your chocolate in a heat proof bowl, and set that above a pot with just an inch or so of water. Set that contraption on the stove and simmer the water- don't boil it. That's how you overheat it. When it starts getting soft, which may take forever, stir the chips until they're smooth and melted! Then pull your filling balls out of the fridge. I like to put three or four in the bowl at once. Then using a fork, make sure they're covered all over and fish them out. The fork is nice because the excess can drip out the bottom. I also discovered a bizarre but hugely useful tool in my utensil drawer- a chopstick. I used that to cover up naked spots, smooth out rough spots, and gently nudge the truffle off the fork and back to the tray. While the chocolate is still melted, put the chocolate chips on. If it's hot, you may find that the filling balls get too soft while they're sitting out. But if you have two trays, you can alternate which one you're working on and never have downtime while you wait for them to get firm again!

I got exactly 58 out of this, while Annie's recipe said it would yield about 4 dozen. I just made mine a little small, so if you want more or less, just play with how full you make the scoops. 

So when they're all dipped, put them back in the fridge until the chocolate is set. Store them in the fridge until you serve them so the chocolate doesn't get sticky.

The best part

Reviews
I can always count on my dad and my brother Nate to volunteer as taste testers. Nate's review came in the form of just eating more, and Daddy called them "wonderfully decadent." I also brought them into work because I can count on my coworkers to give me honest feedback. Ben, who called himself the Roger Ebert of food, gave it a thumbs up (He's not a real critic, just real picky). And my beloved Aunt and coworker Becky said "Delectable! How could cookie dough get any better? Dip it in chocolate."

Aesthetically average, but still quite delicious.


*dainty=lazy