Chocolate Cookies & Cream Ice Cream

Hey guys, last Friday I produced my first guest post for Liz from Blog is the New Black! Click here to check it out. I thought the recipe was to great not to share on my blog, so here it is. 

It’s now officially summer, so what better way to celebrate and cool off from the heat than with chocolate cookies & cream ice cream? Those like myself who don’t own ice cream machines and can’t stand the thought of hand-churning the mix every few minutes will be glad to hear that this ice cream can be made entirely by hand and requires absolutely no churning.

Because it’s made from coconut milk, the ice cream thickens naturally in the freezer which means that it takes a lot less time to freeze than traditional homemade ice cream. You don’t have to return to the freezer every 30 minutes to churn it by hand, either, which frees up plenty of time to pig out on the remaining Oreos that you didn’t use in the ice cream.

Since this recipe replaces the traditional egg yolk and cream base with coconut milk, you can also kid yourself that you’re actually eating healthily by devouring bowls full of the stuff and who doesn’t enjoy feeling healthy whilst sporting a face covered in chocolate?

Chocolate Cookies & Cream Ice Cream

Generously serves 2

Ingredients

1 + 2/3 cup coconut milk

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

4 Oreo cookies

Recipe

1. Combine the coconut milk, cocoa powder and brown sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over a medium heat. Stir regularly and when the sugar has completely dissolved, remove the pan from the heat and leave to one side to cool.

2. Place the Oreo cookies in a Ziploc bag and roughly crush them with a rolling pin. You can use a food processor for this step, but bashing the cookies with a rolling pin gives better results because you get a mixture of small crumbs and large chunks.

3. Stir the vanilla essence into the cooled chocolate coconut milk mix and place in the refrigerator for an hour or so until fully chilled.

4. When cool, remove the ice cream base from the refrigerator and fold in the Oreo chunks. Mix thoroughly so that the chunks are evenly distributed.

5. Place in the freezer and leave to set for around 2 hours.

Remove the ice cream from the freezer at least 10 minutes before you’re ready to serve so it has the chance to soften up. Sprinkle on top crushed Oreos or even decorate with whole mini Oreos and you’re ready to enjoy a decadent, but not so naughty, chocolate frozen treat.

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Healthy Oreo Ice Cream

A thick and creamy ice cream tickled with crunchy Oreo chunks – you’d never guess this Oreo ice cream was healthy! The Greek yoghurt and light cream cheese provide the thick, smooth ice cream texture, whereas the vanilla extract and hot cocoa powder sweeten it up. This recipe doesn’t call for an ice cream maker, either – you can make it all by hand in a matter of minutes.

I’m not really bothered about ice cream – I’m much more of a brownie or cupcake girl – and when I think of all the cream and sugar that goes into it, I’m even less keen on it. This recipe tackles those issues – it calls for only a small amount of sugar and replaces double cream with a healthy substitute – Greek yoghurt.

My Official Treat Taster and I were having a discussion about the definition of a healthy recipe. I was arguing that I think a healthy recipe is one that’s pretty low-cal with hardly any fat and sugar. He was insisting that in order for a recipe to be healthy, it has to have nutritional value. For some reason, he would not humour my attempts to convince him of the uncountable health benefits of Oreos.

What’s your definition of a healthy recipe?

Healthy Oreo Ice Cream

Ingredients

250ml Greek yoghurt

4tbsp Light cream cheese

1tsp Vanilla extract

4tbsp Sugar

4 Crushed Oreos

1tbsp Hot cocoa powder

Recipe

1. Mix together the yoghurt, cream cheese and vanilla extract.

2. Stir in the sugar, hot cocoa powder and Oreos.

3. Place into a tub suitable for freezing and leave in the freezer for around 4 hours to set.

4. Remove from the freezer at least 15 minutes before you want to serve.

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Easter Oreo Chicks

These Easter Oreo Chicks are so simple to make and look super cute. No baking required, they are the perfect treat to make with children or when you're short of ingredients and only have the basics at hand.

Scroll to the bottom for the recipe. 

I've been a bit behind on my blogging - in fact, I've been completely absent from the online world since Tuesday, enjoying a mini break. On Wednesday I spent a fantastic day at the beach with a really good friend which ended in copious amounts of white wine, lots of girly giggling and a very sunburnt face.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent high up a mountain in a pine forest on a camping trip. The weather took a turn for the worst and was really unusual for this time of year - it rained almost the whole time we were there and the temperature was so cold I ended up wearing all the clothes I'd taken for the three days, plus everything I could steal from my Official Treat Taster resulting in wearing about seven layers of clothing.

Fortunately, we'd taken packets upon packets of marshmallows - along with a couple of bottles of sangria - with us so we spent a good few hours just sat by the BBQ toasting and somewhat burning them.

When we were out exploring a corner of the island we'd never visited, I stumbled upon a shop that had a set of adorable mini Easter cookie cutters and I snapped them up. But that's enough of my rambling - back to the Easter Oreo Chicks!

Ingredients

Mini Oreos

White chocolate

Yellow food colouring

Icing pens

Recipe

1. Melt the white chocolate in 25-second intervals in the microwave.

2. Gradually add drops of yellow food colouring to the white chocolate until you get the Easter-chick-yellow you're looking for.

3. Dip each mini Oreo into the white chocolate and leave to one side to set. If one coating of chocolate isn't enough to fully cover the Oreos, re-dip them once the first layer has set.

4. Draw eyes, a beak, two wings and two little feet on each of the Easter Oreo Chicks.

But wait - there's more!

When I was away, I got so many kind comments - thanks to all of you - and also received a couple awards and features!

Kit from I-Lost in Austen kindly presented me with the Liebster Award and Amy from One Artsy Mama featured me in her Top Ten Thursday. 

Thanks so much to both of you.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Here are the link parties I take part in.
Come and join the fun!

  

   

Double-Dipped Oreo Cheesecake Truffles

Creamy, chocolaty and dense – I didn’t realise that people could fall in love with sweets or candy until I tried Oreo Cheesecake Truffles. One layer of chocolate didn’t seem enough to hold in the immense melt-in-your-mouth goodness that these truffles had to offer, so I turned it up a notch and added another layer of chocolate.

These Double-Dipped Oreo Cheesecake Truffles are so easy and require minimal effort to make, yet still look amazing and taste fantastic! You could easily decrease the amount of cream cheese used here, but you probably won't get the thick, fudge-like texture that I was going for.

Double-Dipped Oreo Cheesecake Truffles

Makes around 10 truffles

Ingredients

8 Oreos

5tbsp cream cheese

100g milk chocolate

100g white chocolate

Chocolate sprinkles or Oreo crumbs to decorate

Recipe

1. First you need to crush the Oreos. You can do this easily with a food processor or the fun way by placing the Oreos inside a sealed plastic bag and bashing them with a rolling pin.

2. To the crushed Oreos, add cream cheese and mix well. Separate about 1tbsp of the mixture at a time and roll into balls and place on a plate.

3. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave. Make sure you remove and stir every 20 sections to avoid the chocolate burning and becoming unusable.

4. Dip every Oreo cheesecake ball into the chocolate and make sure it’s fully-coated. Place them all on a plate and leave in the fridge for an hour to set.

5. When the chocolate has fully hardened, melt the white chocolate and coat the Oreo truffles again. Before placing them in the fridge, sprinkle crushed Oreo or chocolate sprinkles on top for decoration. 


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Death by Oreo Cupcakes

This has to be one of my all-time favourite cupcake flavours. I love Oreos and anything that incorporates them cannot be anything less than fantastic!

I always seem to struggle when piping the icing - even when I refrigerate it before piping onto the fully-cooled cupcakes, it always seems to melt. I assume this is because I live in a warm climate. If you have any tips, please let me know in the comments section!

This recipe yields 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

12 Oreo cookies

115g self-raising flour

115g sugar

11g cocoa powder

½ teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

60ml milk

1 egg

30g chocolate

55ml boiling water

45ml oil

Tsp of vanilla essence

Frosting

70g unsalted butter

100g cream cheese

125g icing sugar

1tbp milk

½ tsp vanilla extract

Oreo halves (crushed)

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a muffin pan with large paper cases.

2. Take an Oreo and carefully twist it open. Place the cookies with the icing to one side and keep the other half of the Oreos for the frosting. 

3. Melt the chocolate and leave to cool. In a  bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.

4. In another bowl, whisk the egg until it thickens slightly and turns pale in colour. To the egg mix, add in the milk, vanilla and oil and whisk well. Add in the cooled chocolate and whisk again.

5. Add the wet mix to the dry mix and combine. Stir in the hot water.

6. Scoop a small amount of the cake mixture into each case and place the iced Oreo half on top. Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full.

7. Bake in the oven for around 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

8. Take the Oreo halves reserved for the frosting and crush them until they resemble coarse crumbs.

9. Whisk together the butter and icing sugar, adding the milk and vanilla extract until the mixture is light and fluffy. 

10. Separately, whisk the cream cheese until it is smooth, then fold into the icing with the Oreo crumbs.

11. Once the cupcakes are cooled, pipe on the frosting.