Chocolate-Dipped Oreos

These are so much easier than they look. Time consuming, yes. Hard, no. To make these, I would recommend investing in a candy-dipping set. You can find cheap plastic ones at Roberts/Michaels/Hobby Lobby (or Santa if you happen to be me). They look like this.

You will want to use the fork tool. You will also need a package of Oreo's and some candy melts. Those are the little discs of white chocolate that come in all different colors. They look like this. They don't taste quite as good as real chocolate, but they melt like a dream, and you don't have to temper them. If you don't know anything about chocolate, just trust me on this, tempering is difficult, and if you don't do it, or you do it wrong, your candy will melt at room temperature. Just sitting on your counter. No joke. Melting chocolate messes with its structure. Just don't try it.

Back to business. Pour your candy melts into the bowl of a double boiler. If you have no idea what that is, or you don't have one, you can make your own. Just put a metal bowl on top of a medium sized pot. The bowl should completely seal the top of the pot. Fill the pot with an inch of water, and put your "double boiler" on the stove top on medium-low. Basically you want steam from the water in the pot to heat the chocolate you will pour in the bowl above. Whatever you do, do NOT add the chocolate to the water. Chocolate+water= a great big grainy seized mess. Chocolate needs to be heated at very low temperatures to keep proper structure, so using a double boiler will help a lot. It will keep the chocolate from direct heat so you shouldn't have trouble with it overheating.

Put a sheet of parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet, and place a cooling rack on top of the paper. You will use this to put your cookies on while they set, and to transport them to the freezer.

Melt the candy melts in the double boiler over low heat until smooth. You do NOT want the chocolate to get overheated at all, or your chocolate won't set right. When they are mostly melted you can remove the bowl from the heat and stir until all the lumps come out. Let it cool down just a little, or your first Oreo's will only get a very thin coat of chocolate (and if you use a light color you'll be able to see the dark cookie underneath).

Next put an oreo on the top of your fork tool. Use it to lower the cookie into the chocolate mixture and pull it right back out. Make sure the whole cookie was submersed. You can do it a second time but if you do it too much, cookie crumbles will start to get into your chocolate, so try to do it right the first time. Tap the neck of the fork on the bowl a few times to get excess chocolate off. Carefully jiggle the cookie off of the fork and onto a cooling rack. If you want to decorate with jimmies, do this while the chocolate is still wet.

Repeat until your rack is full, then place the whole cookie sheet+rack into the freezer to set. It should only take 15 minutes or so. Remove the tray and let them come to room temperature, then use a spatula to remove from the cooling rack (some of the chocolate might have glued the Oreo's to the rack, but a sharp spatula will take these off pretty easily). At this point you can add fondant cut-outs or pipe with icing. (Don't judge my cookies below too harshly, I couldn't find a mini guitar cookie cutter, so I had to make one and they didn't come out looking much like guitars!)

These are great because you can customize them for any occasion. You can do wedding colors, initials, or little cutouts for holidays. I imagine these could be adorable at a baby shower. You know I'm going to say it, don't you... Be Creative!!