I’m not a huge Paula Deen fan, but this recipe was too easy not to try. It’s a great recipe to make ahead for parties or to give as a gift. The fudge is just slightly sweeter than a plain chocolate fudge, thanks to the butterscotch chips. After our holiday party, there were only a few pieces left, so I call this recipe a success!
1 c. toasted sweetened coconut (or nuts or other mix ins of your choice)
Butter a 9×9 inch baking dish. Line with parchment paper and butter the paper. Set aside.
In a bowl set over boiling water, melt chocolate and butterscotch chips and condensed milk. Stir regularly, until smooth. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and 3/4 c. coconut. Pour into the prepared baking dish, spreading to even it out. Top with remaining coconut.
Remember the story about me being a weird kid and not liking cheese to such an extent that I would take the cheese off my pizza? Well, here’s another one of those fun facts about me – I was the kid that used to (and still does) eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, minus the jelly. In fact, when I met A, that’s how I knew we would become best friends. We both ate plain peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.
Peanut butter is a staple in my diet. I love peanut butter on a toasted English muffin for breakfast, or in a protein bar. No lunch? Easy enough to whip up a peanut butter sandwich. Snack? Who doesn’t like celery and peanut butter or peanut butter on crackers? Oh, the list doesn’t stop there…. there’s Asian pork tenderloin with peanut sauce for dessert and PB&J bars, peanut-butter filled chocolate cupcakes, or peanut butter balls for dessert.
Anyway, here’s one more great dessert recipe using peanut butter. Quick and easy to make, and best off, freezable so that you always have a sweet in the house. I’d make another batch now, but the hubby is catching on to my freezer trick…. Enjoy!
12 oz. semisweet chocolate (either chocolate chips or bakers chocolate, coarsely chopped)
6 oz. milk chocolate candy bars (12 mini Hershey bars or 4-1.55 oz. bars)
sprinkles or candies for topping (optional)
Line 3 mini muffin tins with cupcake liners and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine 1/2 c. peanut butter, butter, confectioners’ sugar and salt. Stir until well combined.
In a microwave-safe medium bow, place remaining peanut butter, and both chocolates. Microwave in 20-30 second increments, stirring well in between, until chocolate is fully melted.
Pour a scant 1 tsp. of chocolate into the bottom of each of the cupcake liners. Top with 1/2 a teaspoon of peanut butter, and top with another teaspoon of chocolate. Sprinkle with candy if desired and refrigerate to set, a couple of hours.
What’s the perfect dessert for a Wine & Cheese Party? Why more cheese of course! These bite-sized goodies took a while to make but were a star of the party, so well worth it. Anything leftover will keep in the freezer, as long as you can hide them there. 🙂
* Note: You can use candy melts instead of the chocolate / shortening mixture.
Make the Cheesecake:
Preheat oven to 325F. Set water aside to boil.
In a stand mixer on low-speed, combine cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. Add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, until thoroughly combined. Add in vanilla and cream.
Grease a 10-inch cake pan. (The directions specifically said not to use a springform pan, but since my cake pans looked small, I did anyway – it turned out just fine.) Pour the patter into cake pan, and place pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill roasting pan with boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan.
Bake until cheesecake is firm and slightly browned on top, about 65 minutes (the directions said 35-40 minutes, but my was not even close to cooked at that point!)
Remove cheesecake from water bath and let cool completely. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours.
Make the truffles:
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Remove cheesecake from freezer and scoop into small balls –Â I used a small ice cream scoop. Roll into a ball and place on prepared baking sheet. Freeze uncovered until hard, 1-2 hours.
When frozen, prepare the chocolate for dipping. Melt half of the chocolate and shortening in a double broiler or in the microwave. Stir until completely smooth.
Lay another sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet or on the counter top (my kitchen was awfully warm so I put it on the cookie sheet so that I could refrigerate the truffles, ensuring that they hardened completely.)
Remove cheesecake balls from the freezer and dip into the prepared chocolate. If desired, roll or drizzle with your favorite toppings. Set of parchment paper to harden, refrigerating if necessary.
These 5-ingredient little nuggets take a while to make, but they’re easy and totally worth the time investment. A family recipe, these Peanut Butter Balls are a favorite among family and friends. Make them once, and they’ll be requested every year after that!
Instead of the traditional Christmas cookies, my mother-in-law makes Christmas candies – orange balls, Oreo truffles, peanut butter balls, turtles, coconut balls…Â Since we won’t be home for the holidays this year, I decided to treat my husband to two of his favorites – the Oreo Truffles and Peanut Butter Balls for our annual holiday party.
Two notes about this recipe. First, I credit the recipe to my mother-in-law, as I used what she gave me. However, there are many Oreo truffle recipes out there, with slight variations – for example, Bakers Chocolate has a recipe on AllRecipes that uses Bakers Chocolate as the chocolate coating instead of candy-melts.
Secondly, although these have cream cheese in them, my mother-in-law never refrigerated them, but rather kept them at room temperature in an air tight container.
Anyway, this is the first time I’ve made truffles, or anything that involved dipping in chocolate, so they aren’t that pretty but they were good!
Dec 2009 Update: I tried making these with white chocolate instead of candy melts, and the white chocolate just did not work – it was way too think. However, we did use plain bittersweet chocolate, melted, and that worked just fine if you don’t have candy-melts on hand.
Oreo Truffles
Yields: About 6 dozen truffles
1 package Oreos, crushed
1 8-oz package cream cheese
2 bags white-chocolate candy-melts
Line two baking sheets with wax paper or parchment paper.
Microwave cream cheese for 30 seconds or so, until soft enough to stir.
Using a wooden spoon, combine Oreos and cream cheese. If your Oreos were in larger chunks, you should be able to crush them with the spoon, so that the cream cheese and cookies are well blended.
Roll into balls, slightly smaller than a golf ball and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Melt white chocolate in microwave, stirring until completely melted.
Dip Oreo balls in white chocolate and place back on wax paper to solidify again.
Keep the Oreos in an air-tight container in a cool place or refrigerate until serving.
