OREO Cookie Balls Five Ways

OK, Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away. It’s officially time to panic. Or not. I’m trying to help you out here with a ton of fun and easy recipes. These OREO Cookie Balls are what I like to think of as a grazing dessert. They’re the type of thing you put out early and everyone can start to enjoy them well before the meal is served. It’s gonna look a little tacky if you slice into the pumpkin pie before you slice into the turkey, but pop one of these balls in your mouth and no one will look twice. OK, maybe you’ll get a wee touch of the side-eye from your cousin if you get the last of their favorite flavor. For the most part, though, you’re good.

Start with the basic OREO Cookie Ball recipe. It’s pretty darn easy. I gave my mini-prep a workout making these. It made my cookies a bowl of dust in no time. If you don’t have a mini-prep processor, get one. You can thank me later. 

Once I created my cookie dust, I threw my cream cheese in the bowl and used my hands. Yet another recipe where your hands are going to do a better job than any spoon. I used a cookie scoop to get fairly evenly sized scoops of the mixture, but then I again used my hands to roll each scoop into a ball. Yep. A hands on recipe. If you’re getting littles to help, please…pretty please…supervise the hand washing here. You know where they’ve been.

Now comes the fun part. How are you going to serve your OREO Cookie Balls? I mean, sure, you could go for the classic chocolate covered ball and call it a day…but where’s the fun in that? Ball numero uno? A classic English Toffee. You can find English toffee chips on the same aisle with your chocolate chips. Just sprinkle on your freshly dipped balls. Want a cookie ball that will see you into the Christmas season? Try these peppermint balls. Just throw some candy canes or peppermints into a plastic bag. Put that plastic bag into another plastic bag. Trust me…it’s gonna make a mess if you don’t. Then wack the heck out of the candy until your pieces are small enough to sprinkle on your balls. Salted caramel. Ohhh….ahhh…so elegant, right? Just take caramels and melt with a little milk or cream in a double boiler. Spoon the melted caramel onto your balls and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. The bonus with these is that most kids don’t like salted caramel. Silly kids. That’s more for you. Back on that aisle with the chocolate chips and the English toffee, pick up a bag of peanut butter chips. I threw my chips into my mini chopper because I wanted them a little smaller and more textured.  You could do this or you could just sprinkle on the chips as is. Your call. One last visit to the chip aisle, OK? This time pick up a bag of crème de menthe chips. As with the peanut butter chips, I gave this a chopping in my mini-prep to make them a bit smaller. Again, totally optional. What can I say? I like creating totally unnecessary extra steps when I cook.

What’s super great about all of these ideas is that they’re totally gonna hide all kinds of sins. I’m so not good at getting really smooth chocolate when I dip things, and although I tried, I’m sure some of my balls were lumpy and misshapen. No big deal, though. Sprinkling things on top covers it all up!

Make sure you visit the chip aisle on your next grocery trip. I suppose they call it the baking aisle, not the chip aisle. But I digress. Stalk that section for all sorts of things to put on your balls. I’m sure you can be  more creative than me!