My son is celebrating his third birthday this weekend, and we couldn’t be more excited. For some reason, third birthdays are always my favorite. It’s the first year that the kids really get what’s going on so their excitement is tangible. Doing my best to step it up a notch for his big 0-3 party I am making sure to include all of is favorite things. Pirates, and chocolate chip cookies. How in the world am I going to combine those two loves you ask? By making chocolate covered cookie dough bites, also known as chocolate chip cookie truffles. And to make them extra pirate-y I shall rename them Chocolate Cannon balls for the sake of the party. I know, I’m a genius.

These truffles are always a huge hit. They are extremely simple and look both elegant, and scrumptious. They also give the impression of having spent tons of time in the kitchen. I won’t tell your guests how easy these are if you don’t.

The first thing you need is some cookie dough. If you use pasteurized eggs, you don’t have to worry about the raw egg factor of the cookie dough. Some store bought brands of dough are made this way, but double check your package to be sure. I almost always make my own though. I make the dough as usual, skipping the eggs and adding just enough milk to make the dough the right consistency.

Grab your cookie scoop and scoop all of your cookie dough into nice little round bite sized balls. Try you best not to eat them all. You will want to at least have some for your guests. I put my cookie balls onto a cookie sheet, you won’t need to leave much room between them because you aren’t baking them. So load up that cookie sheet. Once you’ve scooped them all out, place them into the freezer. It takes about one hour to freeze them completely.

After an hour you can make your chocolate dip. I make mine in the crock pot, set on warm. The warm setting isn’t hot enough to burn the chocolate, but warm enough to melt it thoroughly. I throw in a cup and a half of semi sweet chocolate chips, and one tablespoon of shortening. The great thing about the crock pot is that you can walk away a little. I wouldn’t recommend starting a new project, but you could go to the bathroom and not worry. Couldn’t do that when melting chocolate on the stove!

Once your chocolate is all completely melted, grab your frozen cookie balls and dip them one at a time into the chocolate. Make sure they get a good even coating. Place them onto another cookie sheet to set. Right after I dip them and put the on the cookie sheet I like to sprinkle them with a pinch of kosher salt. It adds a good depth of flavor, and it looks pretty too! Repeat with all of your remaining cookie balls. Put back into the fridge to completely set the chocolate.

To serve, I put them into mini muffin paper cups. Simple and sweet! You cannot beat that!

 

-Stephanie Wright