Friday, February 11, 2011

Valentine's Day Treats - Oreo Truffles & Cake Balls!

Here's a great pair of tried and true recipes to whip up for Valentine's Day! I took an assortment of both treats to law school, and they were rapidly devoured by my fellow law students. That means they're good!



Oreo Truffles:
1 package Oreos, finely crushed
1 package cream cheese, softened
1 package chocolate candy melt coating or almond bark coating


Mix the cream cheese and Oreos together. Form into balls and put in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. Melt the candy melts (according to package directions - don't overheat!) and dip the balls in it. Top with sprinkles before the coating hardens.

You can mix food coloring in the white candy melts to get pink! This one has clear sugar crystals on top.

Plain white candy melts with red sparkle sugar!

Here's the inside!


Cake Balls:
1 box cake mix + whatever eggs/oil/water are needed
3/4 can icing
1 package chocolate candy melts or almond bark

Bake the cake according to the box directions. Let the cake cool. Crumble the cake and mix it with the icing (use your hands!). Form into balls and put in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. Melt the candy melts (according to package directions - don't overheat!) and dip the balls in it. Top with sprinkles before the coating hardens.

These ones are funfetti cake + vanilla icing + chocolate candy coating...

I used my candy mold to make some white chocolate roses again!
(If you freeze them after they're done, they "sweat" like this when you take them out. If you store them in the fridge instead they won't do that.)

The inside!

These ones were strawberry cake + cream cheese icing + chocolate candy melts.

Mmmm!

I love cake balls because there are infinite combinations you can create with different flavors of cake (yellow, red velvet, carrot, spice cake, lemon, etc.) and icing (strawberry, cream cheese, chocolate, vanilla, coconut pecan, cherry, lemon, fudge, etc.)! Plus, you can pretty much dress them up for any occasion! I put these in mini cupcake papers, but they look perfectly cute just sitting on a platter as well! 

PS - how cute are these cupcake papers that say "sweet?"




Also, just so you know, I may or may not have eaten five of them in a row for the sake of these photos... hehe. Is anybody else a cake ball fan? I haven't really got in to the whole "cake pops" thing, but I love these little guys! 

7 comments:

  1. YUM! those look sooo good. i esp like the little wrappers, how cute. have a lovely weekend. xoxo jcd

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yum! Oreo Truffles are one of my all-time favorite things to make. I haven't made cake balls yet, but this post may have convinced me to try it for Valentine's Day!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love cake balls and oreo balls! I hadn't heard of them until I moved here to Waco (I guess it's not a Corpus thing), and they're so yummy!

    But how do you dip them so they look pretty? I made some for halloween and they just didn't look so pretty because my red velvet cake was bleeding into the white chocolate. Needless to say, yours are WAY better looking than mine. Any tips?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I made oreo truffles this past christmas to pass out to friends and coworkers and they were a big hit!! Yours looked way better than mine did though. Plus I found my arm was killing me after crushing all those oreos and mixing them in with the cream cheese. What did you use to do that part??

    ReplyDelete
  5. @futuremrsmathewwolfe - Here are my tips for pretty dipping:

    1) Freeze the cake balls for at least 30 minutes before you dip 'em. They won't crumble at all if they're frozen, and the chocolate will harden faster and smoother.

    2) Dip them with a fork. The excess chocolate will run through the fork and that will prevent you from having globs of chocolate.

    3) Do half a batch at a time. Melt half the chocolate, and dip half the cake balls (while the other half are in the freezer). Then do the other half. If you do it in halves, the cake balls will stay cold and the melted chocolate won't have time to harden.

    @Melissa V. - When I'm crushing things, I grab two gallon-sized Ziploc bags and my meat tenderizer. I put the cookies in one bag, and then put that bag in the other bag (in case one bag gets torn). Then, I sit on the rug in our living room and I put the cookies on the floor and I pound them with the flat side of the meat tenderizer, flipping the bag over every so often so the bigger cookie chunks are on top. My downstairs neighbors probably hate me, but it gets the job done!!

    As for mixing with the cream cheese, I let the cream cheese sit out for a while so its really softened, and then I usually put the cream cheese and cookie crumbs in a big bowl and microwave it for 10 seconds or so to make it a little easier to mix. Then, I use my hands and get totally messy. :o)

    ReplyDelete
  6. ok so Katie J, my roomie, has been making cake balls and cake pops for about a month now...pretty consistently anndddd I love it!! She made cakepops that looked like OWLS! And then she made a whole galaxy with planets/stars, etc. for her friend's son's bday party...andddd THEN she made cake pops for valentines day that were....wait for it...hearts AND owls!!

    oh ill post pics up on fb soon. You would enjoy them a lot :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. TATA FROM BROOKLYN;I LOVE CAKE BALLS I DIDN'T LIKE MAKING THEM BECAUSE OF THE EXTENDED PROCESS TO MAKE THEM, BUT AFTER GIVING OUT A FEW SAMPLES I STARTED SELLING THEM. SELLING THEM HAS CONVINCED ME THAT I REALLY DO LIKE MAKING LOL. I DON'T US BOX OR STORE BOUGHT CAKE MIX I MAKE THEM FROM SCRATCH. I MADE HEART SHAPE CAKE POPS FOR VALENTINES DAY THEY WAS A BIT HIT.

    ReplyDelete