Mint Oreo Balls

One of the worst things about no dairy (beside missing cheese)is no chocolate. But that problem is no more :) For starters...Did you know that oreos don't have milk or eggs? Yes that is right! I discovered that happy fact about a month ago. Yes I was VERY happy. And I have been singing "Ice cold milk and an oreo cookie..." at random times at least every other day since then. My two year old has even started singing that jingle, and she has NEVER seen that commercial. Is that sad, or funny? I'm not sure.

Anyway, back to the point. We went shopping at Sprouts this past weekend because I read that they carry some of the dairy substitutes that we can't find at our Walmart or Kroger. We came home with soy yogurt, soy "cream cheese", veganaise (like miracle whip but with no dairy or eggs), soy "cheddar cheese" slices, coconut milk kefir and dairy free chocolate chips. You have no idea how happy I was about all of these!

Sometime last week I read in the newspaper about oreo ball recipes. I had those before when a friend made them and they are SOOO yummy. Oreos crumbs mixed with cream cheese and coated with chocolate. MMMMMmmmm!

So I decided that I would try a dairy free version. I started out with 4 ounces of the soy "cream cheese", a half package of mint oreo cookies (crushed with a rolling pin into crumbs), 1/2 tspn mint extract, and a package of choclate bakers squares (read the package carefully, some have milk but some don't...and it was a LOT cheaper for that than it was for the chocolate chips!) I mixed the cream cheese, mint extract and crushed oreos. I ended up adding more oreos, and ultimately used 3/4 of the package. The mixture was still very soft, so I refrigerated it for about an hour, then rolled balls of the mixture and placed them on waxed paper. The balls went back into the fridge for an hour.

I melted 2 bakers squares, following the directions on the package. (I did end up using the whole package, it just works best to do a small amount at a time so that you aren't reheating the chocolate too many times.) The chocolate wasn't quite sweet enough, so I added about a half tablespoon of powdered sugar, then microwaved it for about 10 more seconds. I dipped each oreo ball into the chocolate, rolled it in crushed peppermint candies and placed in back on the waxed paper. Then they were refrigerated for at least 3 hours and came out looking like this.

Not quite as good as with real cream cheese, but definitely yummy! And I had chocolate again :)