Oreo truffles have always been one of my favorite things. From their versatility (especially now that Oreos have so many delicious flavors) to their incredibly easy recipe, and most importantly, the fact that they’re always a crowd pleaser.

But before I get into the truffles, a quick housekeeping note:

For those of you who formerly knew me as Add a Pinch of Salt, it’s still me, but my blog is now going to focus a lot more on baking, cake and cupcake decorating, the trials and tribulations of fondant vs. buttercream, etc. so I gave it a rebranding. You will now forever know me as Build Me Up Buttercream!

Another change you’ll start to see (hopefully) is improved photography. Thanks to my loving husband, I’m now the proud owner of a Nikon D3200, which I hope will help to bring my new blog and baked goods to life for all of you in a whole new and much better way. Please forgive my learning curve for now

But I digress… let’s get back to the chocolate.

The Superbowl gave me the perfect excuse to reinvent the traditional Oreo truffles. You all know the recipe. 1 package softened cream cheese, one package crushed Oreos. Combine and coat with chocolate. White, dark, milk or colored candy melts – no matter what these babies look like on the outside, they’re darn tasty. Thanks to Pinterest, I was enlightened with the idea of making these into little mini footballs coated with milk chocolate with royal icing stitches. And since the recipe is truly that easy, I’ll spend some time in this post explaining a bit more about royal icing.

If you’ve ever learned the basics of cake decorating, you probably know a little bit about royal icing. If you haven’t, you’ve probably at some point in your life had a cake that had those crusty roses on top that the little kids fought over (until it came time to actually eat them). Those were made of royal icing. What makes royal icing different from traditional frosting and gives it that crusty, rock-solid texture once it dries might surprise you. Growing up, I always assumed it was basically pure sugar. But the ingredient that defines royal icing is actually meringue powder, or egg whites, depending how much work you want to put into it. Personally, I use pre-bought meringue powder as I find it much easier and faster to work with, and it isn’t overly expensive.

My recipe for royal icing, courtesy of Wilton, is as follows:

• 3 tablespoons meringue powder
• 6 tablespoons warm water
• 4 cups (or 1 box) confectioners’ sugar

* Side note: I halved this recipe for my football Oreo truffles, and still had some leftover.

Simply place all ingredients in a stand mixer, or mix in a bowl with an electric mixer or a whisk, until well combined. The end result should be similar to a confectioners sugar/water mixture – thick and goopy – but the meringue powder will help it to dry nice and stiff like you want it.

For my football Oreo truffles, the royal icing was great because I was able to pipe it on using a Wilton #1 tip (the one with the smallest opening) and the initial frosting-like texture allowed me to fix any small mistakes, but it dried  nice and stiff. With any other frosting, the footballs would not be able to be stacked in a plate or even picked up without ruining the stitches… and with white chocolate, I would not have been able to nicely pipe the stitches on so they looked uniform.

I am happy to report that my football truffles are a huge hit at our Superbowl party!

What is your favorite crowd-pleasing party food or dessert? Do you have a consistent go-to like my Oreo truffles? Tell me in the comments!

The week after Christmas, I was gifted some leftover hazelnuts that a friend of mine was going to throw away. I have to admit, the concept of cooking with hazelnuts is pretty new to me, but when she said she had them, the first thing that came to my mind was Nutella.

Ahh, Nutella – your creamy, chocolatey, nutty goodness is unlike any other. I wasn’t sure if a homemade version could even do justice to the kind in the jar, since I already had such a love for it. But it most definitely did. Here is the recipe I followed.

Homemade Nutella (Adapted from Instructables):

Ingredients

• 7 ounces of hazelnuts
• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• 9 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup fat free milk (heated)

Directions

1. Toast hazelnuts in a saute pan over low to medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Nuts should smell roasted, not burnt.

2. Let hazelnuts cool, and then remove the skins. This is a fairly tedious process, but worthwhile to avoid the bitter taste they would add to your Nutella.

3. Place hazelnuts in a food processor, and process until they become the consistency of peanut butter, scraping the edge of the bowl frequently. I forgot to take a picture at this point in the process, so this photo is courtesy of Instructables.

4. Melt chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl on a low power setting for 2 minutes at a time, stirring after each 2 minutes, until melted. Stir sweetened condensed milk into melted chocolate.

5. Combine chocolate mixture with hazelnut spread until fully combined. Texture will be thick.

6. Stir in warm milk a little at a time until spread reaches your desired consistency.

And voila! Nutella!

Stay tuned for my post next week (celebrating World Nutella Day!) with a delicious recipe I plan to bake up using this tasty treat. Assuming I don’t eat it all with a spoon before I make it to next week