Posts in: 'Biscuits and Cakes'
Oreo truffles
Posted: 15 October '09 by Niall
Making oreo truffles
This is such a simple, straightforward recipe – it only has 3 ingredients. The only difficulty is in stopping yourself (and others – you know who you are!) from eating the ingredients..
Special thanks to Katie B – our chief assistant, unlicensed ingredient-taster, photography model, and truffle-sampler.
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4
Ingredients:
- 1 packet of Oreo cookies
- 200g of Cream Cheese, room temperature
- 100g of good dark chocolate
You’ll also need:
- A food processor
- Large mixing bowl
- A heat-proof bowl, ideally one that will sit snugly on a saucepan of boiling water without touching the water
- Baking spatula or large spoon
- Grease-proof paper
- A tray that will fit into your freezer and fridge
- A bowl of water
- Metal skewer to help to coat the truffles (optional)
Method:
- Place the oreo cookies in the food processor and blitz them until they have been broken down. How “breadcrumbed” they are depends on you – I like a few large bits in there – a nice surprise when you’re munching through the Oreo Truffles with a cuppa
- Pour most of the crumbs into the large mixing bowl, keeping some back to dust the finished truffles, and add the cream cheese (it’s easier to mix the cream cheese if it isn’t chilled)
- Mix them together until you end up with a brown-coloured, smooth-ish dough – although we started off with a metal spoon, we found that it was much easier just to get your hands in there
- Wash your hands – or spend the next 10 minutes licking them clean
- Cover the tray with the grease-proof paper
- Moisten your fingers from the bowl of water and take a tablespoon of the dough, rolling it into a gobstopper-sized ball, and place onto the tray
- After you’ve used all of the dough, put the tray into the freezer – 5 to 10 minutes should do it – you need the dough balls to get more firm for the next step
- While the dough is in the freezer, bring a pot of hot water to a simmer in your pot, place your heat safe dish on top, and break the bar of dark chocolate into the bowl (make sure that the inside of the bowl and all of your utensils are completely dry – the smallest drop of water in there and the chocolate will be ruined – I speak from experience)
- Constantly stir your chocolate, encouraging it to melt – it’s important not to over-heat it. When a good portion of the chocolate has melted, remove the pan from the heat and continue stirring until the remainder has melted
- Take your dough balls from the freezer and, working quickly, you can try to skewer them the drip chocolate over the truffles – we started to do this but found that lifting each dough ball up using a tablespoon, dropping them into the melted chocolate, roll them around until they were completely coated was easier – whichever method you use, place the coated truffles on the grease-proof covered tray
- Take the remaining oreo pieces that you set aside and sprinkle over the truffles
- Place the tray in the fridge and let them cool again, and the chocolate shell to harden
The Oreo Truffles give a satisfying “crack” when you bite into them, and the slightly bitter chocolate gives way to the rich, creamy, sweet centre – DELISH!
Other information:
We’ve used a lot of cream cheese here – you can lessen the cream cheese content to make the truffles darker, and more intensely rich.
Categories: Biscuits and Cakes > Featured Post > Recipes
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Snicker Krispie Buns
Posted: 13 October '09 by Niall
Snickers Rice Krispie buns
With “Chocolate Week” well and truly upon us, Kelly and I decided to make some chocolate goodies.
As much as we love Chocolate Rice Krispie buns, we thought it was time for a change. Here’s our Snickers Krispie Buns – give it a go – they’re GREAT.
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5Image 6
Ingredients:
- 100g milk chocolate
- 5 cups of Rice Krispies
- 5 Snickers bars (290g X 5)
- 1/4 cup of unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup of crunchy peanut butter
- 25ml of milk to loosen the melting chocolate
You’ll also need: a food processor, 1 saucepan half-filled with water, a glass bowl to sit on top of the saucepan, a very large bowl, a tray that fits into your fridge, and a metal spoon to stir.
Method:
- Place the saucepan of water over a high heat, and place the bowl on top of that.
- Chop the Snickers bars roughly, and blitz in your food processor
- Place the butter into the bowl and allow to melt
- As the butter melts, add the peanut butter and 3/4 of the blitzed Snickers, and stir until all the ingredients have melded
- Pour the Rice Krispies into the large bowl and add the melted ingredients. Mix thoroughly until all of the Krispies have been coated
- Smear the tray with some more unsalted butter and spoon the covered Krispies onto the tray, flattening them to form a sheet about 11/2 to 2cm thick
- Scatter the remaining Snickers pieces on top and lightly press in
- Return the glass bowl to the saucepan and break the milk chocolate into the bowl
- When the chocolate has melted, add the milk and stir until the chocolate has loosened up, then spoon over the Krispie sheet and spread across the surface
- Place the tray into the fridge until the chocolate has fully set – about 30 minutes or so.
Given how delicious these Snickers Krispies are, you won’t have to worry about this next bit – but the Krispie buns are best eaten within 24 hours.
Categories: Biscuits and Cakes > Featured Post > Recipes
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Hazelnut Biscuits – The X-Factor Substitute
Posted: 29 September '09 by Niall
Hazelnut biscuits
With Kelly glued to another episode of X-Factor on Sunday evening (with so much crying going on, the contestants must be in serious danger of de-hydration), I was at a bit of a loose end. Looking through the cupboard I saw that we had plenty of stuff for doing some baking – and with a little help from Nigella Lawson I came up with Hazelnut Biscuits.
The only down-side is that they really don’t take too long to make – you’re looking at three batches to last an x-factor show..
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4
Ingredients
- 150g of hazelnuts
- 30g of icing sugar, and some more to dust the biscuits at the end
- 125g of soft butter
- 90g of plain flour
- pinch of salt
Method
- Heat the oven to 175C
- Empty the hazelnuts into a frying pan, and heat over a low heat until the toasted hazelnuts give off a nice, nutty aroma – and before they start to burn!
- Blitz the nuts in a food processor until they are quite finely ground and looking like breadcrumbs
- Empty the food processor into a bowl
- Add the icing sugar to the food processor and blitz to remove any lumps – then add the flour, salt, and butter, pulsing until the ingredients are well mixed
- Add the hazelnuts and pulse – you’ll probably need to use a plastic spatula to ease the mixture from the edges and pulse again
- Line an oven dish with grease-proof paper
- Take a small amount of the mixture and roll in your hands until you have a smooth ball of dough about the size of a gobstopper
- Place the ball of dough onto the grease-proof paper and press down lightly so that the dough spreads into a flat disc
- Repeat this for the remaining dough
- Place in the oven for 15 minutes
- Remove the oven tray and leave to rest for a few minutes – the biscuits will be a little fragile – then take a spatula and ease the biscuits off the tray and onto a cooling rack
- When the biscuits have cooled, sieve some icing sugar oven the biscuits until they are well dusted
Other Information
We ate our biscuits with a drizzle of honey and dipped into Greek yoghurt – all I’ll say is that you should DEFINITELY give it a go!
Categories: Biscuits and Cakes > Featured Post > Recipes
