Cooking with Emily: Oreo Truffles

I am not a baker at all. In fact, I bought all the ingredients, a hand mixer and pans at Target the day before I did this, but I had the sudden urge to bake using Oreos after scrolling through a list of recipes on Buzzfeed. I chose three of those recipes, varying in difficulty.

The first recipe I am choosing to create is for Oreo truffles, which seem to be the easiest, due to their three simple ingredient list and the fact that no baking is required.

10:58 AM: I was just about to begin making the truffles when I realized it makes a total of 42. I am cutting the recipe in half and opting for a safe 21.

11:03 AM: I have gathered my ingredients and materials.

11:04 AM: I crush five Oreos in a plastic bag. The original recipe says to crush nine in a food processor, but since I do not own one, I use a plastic bag instead, which is also suitable. I do not know whether I am supposed to crush the bag’s content with my hands or some sort of stick thing meant for pounding meat. I end up using my hands.

11:08 AM: I grab a second bag to pound more Oreos, this time 18, which looks more intimidating.

11:14 AM: I finish crushing the Oreos, which I discovered was a pretty good aggression exercise. I am now ready to put the second bag’s contents into a bowl, along with four ounces of cream cheese.

11:18 AM: I finally managed to open the cream cheese from its strange packaging, cut it to size and place it in the bowl above the crushed Oreos.  It looks awkward, lanky and out of place, much like myself.

11:21 AM: I use my hand mixer for the first time. I start on the lowest setting, One, and decide to raise it to Two once I feel more daring. At times, it feels like the mixer is guiding me, not the other way around.

11:24 AM: I finished mixing the ingredients, which felt like a wild ride, but was successful overall.

11:28 AM: My camera SD card ran out of storage, which slowed me down, and I deleted some pictures. This was not mentioned in the recipe.

11:29 AM: I grab my chocolate bar and put it in a bowl to melt it in the microwave. The recipe does not specify how much time it needs to melt, so I am going to go for a minute and see what happens.

11:30  AM: On an unrelated note, I took the chocolate out of its packaging earlier and forgot, thinking someone stole the chocolate and left an empty box. I then found the chocolate and now anticipate microwaving it.

11: 34 AM: One minute was definitely not enough. I put it in for two more.

11: 38 AM: Two more minutes was still not sufficient, although the women on the bar are starting to look less like people and more like deformed bells. I am mixing what is melted thus far with a spoon and placing it in the microwave for two more minutes, totaling five minutes.

11: 39 AM: While I wait, I decide to put on Miley Cyrus’ “Start All Over” to listen to but promptly stop, as I realize that might be a bad omen. I choose “Fly on the Wall” instead.

11: 42 AM: My chocolate was steaming and is now solid with burnt chunks. I should have stopped two minutes ago. I stopped playing music after “Fly on the Wall” finished, due to stress.

11: 42 AM: I am not really sure what to do at this point–that was the only chocolate bar I had. I call my sister in North Carolina, an avid baker, for some advice.

11: 47 AM: She tells me I was not supposed to microwave the chocolate at all but rather boil water in a pot and place a glass bowl over it with chocolate for it to melt. I have no chocolate bars left so I decide to improvise, using chocolate chips.

11: 51 AM: I set up the water to boil and grab my chocolate chips, although I am afraid to use too many, because I need them for a different recipe. While it boils, I line a pan with parchment paper.

11: 52 AM: I realize that life is disappointing and I am not capable of smoothly following three, simple ingredient recipes smoothly.

11: 56 AM: I push the chocolate chips around with a knife and continue to wait for them to become completely liquid.

11: 59 AM: I take the chocolate off the stove and make my first ball of the Oreo cream cheese mix, then dip it in chocolate with a spoon. I continue to do this.

12: 11 PM: I complete the first unattractive row of truffles, but ran out of chocolate again, so I am heating more up now.

12: 18 PM: “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus is now playing, paralleling my struggle to make this recipe; however, I disagree with Miley when she claims the struggle is more about the importance of the journey than the final product.

12:24 PM : I finish making the truffles and then refrigerate. Somehow I ended up with 12, not 24, which was probably a more ideal number anyway.

12:30 PM: I find the first crushed Oreo bag I forgot about, take the truffles out of the refrigerator, sprinkled it on them and put them back inside the refrigerator to sit for at least an hour.

The total recipe time is an hour and a half; half an hour for making the food and the other hour to let it sit and cool. Given that it took me an hour to bake and now another hour to cool, I think it is safe to say my purpose in life is not baking.

1:30 PM: They look nothing like the picture but still taste very satisfying regardless. They are very sweet, probably due to the semi-sweet chocolate chips.

If I did this again, I imagine it would take far less time and come out much better, because I would have all the proper ingredients and no errors. The truffles taste much better once they reach room temperature again.

I think it is safe to say I am exhausted from making what was considered an “easy” recipe and will continue to make the other two Oreo recipes another time.