So when I taught high school, I made the mistake my first year teaching, of telling my students about Oreo Balls, or Oreo Truffles, their more socially appropriate name. I am not sure what possessed me to tell them about my senior prom and the dinner we had at my house (potluck style with my 5 high school besties and our dates) and the Oreo Balls that Jon, Katie’s date, brought. They were so. stinking. good. (How can Oreo, cream cheese and chocolate NOT be good?!) We, with our 18 years of wisdom and living, dubbed them “Jon’s Glorious Balls.” They pretty much lived up to their name… I mean, 10 years later, I am STILL talking about them. (Again, not sure what the context was for me to share this with a bunch of high school freshmen in Spanish I, but I am sure I made a sound connection to the lesson.) The year I told this story was the year of a big school inspection for accreditation of the school. Basically, we drowned ourselves in paper work trying to make sure we had every hoop, loop and jump documented so we could be accredited and not have to do that again for 4 more years. Part of the process was having one of the accreditors come and observe us teach. No pressure! I told the kiddos that if they were well-behaved, I would make them Oreo Balls.
Biggest mistake of my teaching career.
They really do live up to their glory, and I am fairly certain that now my name at school is synonymous with Oreo Balls. When I went back to visit over Christmas, little freshmen whom I had never met before were asking me about them…
ANYWAY… This is my last week of school here in Spain and I wanted to do something for my teachers as a thank you. Chocolate chip cookies, I thought (and this recipe was perfect!). They are easy and quintessentially American. I had a blast in the kitchen rocking to Mumford & Sons. (If you don’t have their album, stop reading and go get it. Seriously. SO GOOD!)
On a slightly different note that is totally related, my life is seriously a shake Etch’A’Sketch these days, and I feel like I am in mid-shake, so having a little control over the kitchen surprisingly gave me a quiet sense of calm amidst the total chaos that is my life. Amazing what a little flour and sugar and chocolate will do for a girl!
But as I was balling up the cookies, I started giggling to myself thinking about all my Oreo Ball adventures from the past couple of years. I ended up making these glorious balls maybe 4 times? Which doesn’t sound like a big deal until I tell you that I had over 100 students. I tried (and failed at) a variety of methods to expedite the process. Using the blender to mash up the cookie part after I had carefully removed by hand the white filling from each cookie. Sticking a blue spatula into the blender to help the cookies get mashed more quickly only to remove the spatula and find that the blender had totally munched up the edge. I had to pick blue plastic out of the cookies before mixing in the cream cheese… Then the balling, freezing, dipping in white chocolate (which incidentally melts way better than dark, if you are feeling brave), the refreezing…
(The dark ones in the picture are undipped and the white ones have been dipped.
Seriously, took me HOURS…)
These cookies were so easy by comparison. And darn good too. Not quite as chewy as I personally like my chocolate chip cookies, but all in all, a successful afternoon in the kitchen.
la rubia en españa 