Friday, December 16, 2011

Chocolate-Covered Oreos

This recipe requires no baking, little prep time and just a few ingredients. They are one of the first cookies to be snatched from the cookie tray. By adding seasonal sprinkles, you can decorate them in about 30 seconds! If you keep Oreos and chocolate chips on hand. these are a quick dessert to take to a potluck or to serve with an after-dinner cup of coffee. The only way I can keep Oreos in this house is to hide them, and even then I don't always succeed in foiling the cookie thieves!

CHOCOLATE-COVERED OREOS

1 bag of Oreo Double-Stuf or Vanilla Oreo cookies
1-1/2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips or white chocolate chips
1-1/2 TBS. solid shortening.
Seasonal or varied-color sprinkles (optional)

In a microwave-safe bowl with steep sides (the Pampered Chef batter bowls are perfect for this) melt the chips, stirring often. Add shortening (the bars of Crisco make it easy to measure amounts) and stir until it's completely melted into the chocolate, microwaving for short periods if necessary. Use a fork to drop one Oreo at a time into the melted chocolate, and turn to coat the entire cookie. Use the fork to remove the cookie, scraping the bottom of the fork across the edge of the bowl to remove excess chocolate. Place cookies on waxed paper to dry. If you use sprinkles, stop after every dozen or so cookies and sprinkle them on. If the coating in the bowl starts to harden, microwave it briefly.  The cookies take a while to solidify; allow them to set up for at least 3 hours before packing into an airtight container. Cookies can be frozen up to 3 months.

NOTES:

1.) Chocolate and water don't mix. Chocolate that has been exposed to water will show "bloom", a whitish cast that spoils the look of the cookie, although it will taste fine and is completely safe to eat. I ruined one batch this weekend. They developed whitish pockmarks, and it took me a while to track down the cause - the steam from the dishwasher had wafted over them while the dishes dried. I made another batch, and the family made short work of the" ugly ones".

2.) You can very easily adjust the recipe to make a larger or smaller batch of the coating. Just keep the number of cups of chips is equal to the number of tablespoons of shortening.

3.) Be especially careful with white chips, stirring often. The white chocolate seems to have a very thin line between 'melted' and 'hardened'!

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