What Exactly Is A Cookie Truffle?

Do you need a fun-looking dessert for a party, but you're no good at baking and feel guilty about bringing something store-bought? Cookie truffles, which look like regular chocolate truffles but are deceptively more easy to make, could be the answer. The only ingredients you need are melted chocolate, cream cheese, and crushed sugar cookies, and there's no baking required.

In short, a cookie truffle is a ball of crushed cookies and cream cheese which is coated in melted chocolate and then refrigerated until the chocolate solidifies into a truffle-like shell. The final result resembles a cake pop, which is a similar no-bake treat that uses cake instead of cookies. If you feel inclined, you can whip up some shortbread or sugar cookies yourself and crush them up to make the balls. Or the sugar cookies themselves can be store-bought, and since they're technically just an ingredient, the final product can still be called "homemade."

A simple, no-frills cookie truffle will be creamy and it'll have a sugary, chocolatey taste, which is enough to make it a hit at parties. But you can still spruce it up in lots of ways. Adding sprinkles to the melted chocolate is an easy way to brighten up your truffles and add some texture without changing the taste much (since the sprinkles are just more sugar). For a stronger chocolatey taste with a little extra crunch, chocolate chips could also be added onto the melted chocolate.

The melted chocolate can be white chocolate if you want the sprinkles to stand out more. If chocolate isn't an option for you, vanilla-flavored candy coating works just as well, as will any other sort of coating candies. For something a little messier but still tasty, a hazelnut-chocolate spread like Nutella can be mixed in with the cookies and cream cheese before you refrigerate it.

Of course, a cookie truffle isn't the same as a regular chocolate truffle. An actual truffle is a rich bite-sized ball filled with a chocolate-and-cream concoction like ganache. It's then coated in hard chocolate or cocoa shavings, and is thought to date back to at least the 1920s. Chocolate truffles might have been created by Auguste Escoffier, the famous French chef who also invented the cherries jubilee dessert.

Chocolate truffles are not to be confused with the truffle mushroom, although the sweet got its name because it resembles the rare fungus. Similarly, the cookie truffle is named for resembling the chocolate truffle with its hard shell, although the inside is much less rich. And no truffles should be confused with bonbons, which have a harder shell made from a chocolate mold with a non-chocolate filling inside such as cherries, caramel, or nougat. They can all look very similar until you open them up and look inside.