This is a story about what it is like to be the child of a food blogger.
The other day, at the grocery store, Zuzu spied a jar of edible cookie dough from The Cookie Dough Cafe in the dairy aisle. She begged me to buy it because she had heard about this company’s products from some of her favorite You Tube stars. I, on the other hand, had never heard of this company — which is on me, apparently, because it has been featured on The Today Show and Shark Tank — and refused on the ground that purchasing a tub of edible cookie dough for $10 was lunacy.
“But we can make that at home,” I said. Of course that is what I said. I don’t even like to order pizza because I can make it just as well at home. (Not deep-dish pizza, mind you, but regular pizza.) “If you want to dig on a big tub of cookie dough, make it yourself,” I exhorted Zuzu.
So she did. Zuzu found a recipe online for egg-free cookie dough dip and made it when she should have been doing her homework. She certainly showed me. However, neither one of us was that happy with the result. Not to knock that recipe, but, to me, the cookie dough dip tasted mostly like cream cheese.
And yet, we were stuck with a half-pint of this tangy cookie dough dip and I never throw away food if I can help it. I suggested to Zuzu that the dip might be better in small amounts, especially if those small amounts were coated in chocolate. “What about cookie dough truffles,” I suggested. Hello holiday gift idea!
To make these truffles, you could simply melt chocolate to cover the balls of cookie dough, but I actually opted to temper the chocolate for the coating to give it a glossy finish and a crisp snap. Melting chocolate without tempering alters its molecular structure and causes it to become dull and streaky over time, especially when kept at room temperature.
Tempering is a process by which you heat and then cool chocolate to form a stable molecular network — I definitely know what that means — that will remain firm and shiny. It’s a pain, but doing so producing beautiful results that are especially important when giving edible gifts. A candy thermometer with readings below 100 degrees is a must for this project.
While you are making these, you will know whether your chocolate was tempered because the finished truffles will harden quickly and take on a matte finish. If the chocolate stays soft and shiny, the tempering did not work and you will need to begin the process again. The truth is, chocolate is finicky and tempering fussy, but it is nevertheless a skill worth learning.
Once you’ve learned to temper chocolate, you can make all sorts of chocolate-dipped confections that have a professional look to them. I had some chocolate left after coating the cookie dough dip, so I used it to coat a dozen dried figs for an slightly more sophisticated edible gift.
The cookie dough dip was greatly improved by a dunk in some rich, dark chocolate. The tanginess of the cream cheese complements the chocolate nicely and the contrast between of the snap of the chocolate coating and the soft cookie dough filling is great fun for your mouth. Zuzu liked the cookie dough truffles so much that she wants to give a bag to her favorite teacher and claim that she made them. I figure that’s about half true.
So because I wouldn’t buy a $10 jar of edible cookie dough — a decision I stand behind, by the way — I ended up spending my morning tempering chocolate and making these truffles. That’s a pretty typical result around here, the home of the stubborn DIY-er.
Ingredients
- 1 batch cookie dough dip
- 8 ounces best-quality semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
Instructions
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and fill a bowl with ice.
- Scoop the cookie dough dip into walnut-sized balls and place the balls on the baking sheets. Place the sheets in the freezer or refrigerator to harden.
- Place 5 ounces of the chocolate in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat on the lowest setting of your weakest burner. (I find that this works as well as using a double-boiler if you are vigilant and do not let the chocolate scorch.)
- Melt the chocolate, stirring constantly until it reaches between 115 and 120 degrees, but not over 120 degrees, on your candy thermometer.
- Remove the pot from the heat and place in the bowl of ice.
- Gradually add small amounts of the remaining chocolate to the pot, whisking constantly, until the chocolate cools to 82 degrees.
- Place the pot back on the stove, again on the lowest setting possible, and gently heat chocolate back to 90 degrees.
- Remove from heat and wrap pot in a towel to insulate it. Using a toothpick or dipping fork, dip one of the chilled balls of cookie dough in the chocolate. Remove, allowing the excess chocolate to drip off and place on the cookie sheet. (If the chocolate was tempered properly, the outside of the dipped balls should quickly harden and turn matte.)
- Repeat with the remaining balls. However, you do not want to let the temperature of the chocolate drop too much below 88 degrees, so periodically, return it to the heat for a few seconds at a time until the temperature reaches 90 again -- but do not go above 90.
- I recommend storing the finished balls in the refrigerator because of the cookie dough.
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