Do you love OREO cookies? Homemade is my favorite kind of cookie, but #2 is OREO, even when I was a kid. They've been around forever,and with good reason. There's just something so fun about pulling apart the halves and eating the cream out of the middle first...wait...don't tell my kids I still do that since I try to discourage them from eating their OREO cookies that way!
Since I love them so much, when I was asked to replicate a recipe using OREO cookies, I immediately said yes and jumped on the chance. I am replicating the Chocolate Covered OREO Christmas Tree found on SpreadOREOCheer.com. It really is such a simple and cute idea that makes a really nice presentation! I plan on doing it a couple of times more before the holiday season is through when I entertain.
I found all of the ingredients at Foodsco. I'm always impressed by how nice the customer service people are there. For example, green candy coating wafers aren't something I buy regularly, so I had to ask a customer service associate for help. He was very friendly and knowledgeable and brought me right to where I needed to go. They actually had a nice selection of candy coating wafers there, so now I know where to go next time I need them!
While I was at Foodsco, I picked up a few other things, like milk, eggs, stuff for hors d'oeuvres for our annual Christmas party, and a few toiletries too. Our local Foodsco is laid out very well, and everything is easy to find. The meat and produce is always fresh, too. I love that I don't have to spend a lot of time picking out vegetables. They're all very high quality here.
So back to the Cookie Tree. In a nutshell, you dip the cookies into the candy coating and set them in a tree shape on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Then you decorate your "tree". It's that easy and it ends up looking like something you worked all day on. What do you think? I was pretty impressed with the simplicity of something that looks so great. Here's the detailed recipe
HOLIDAY OREO COOKIE TREE
INGREDIENTS
- 8 oz. green candy coating wafers, any green color would be fine but dark works best.
- 1 tsp. oil, I used vegetable oil
- 15 OREO Cookies, divided
- ¼ tsp. holiday nonpareils, or you can use any colorful ones
- ½ oz. semi-sweet baking chocolate, melted
- 30 miniature candy-coated chocolate pieces
INSTRUCTIONS
- In a small microwaveable safe bowl, take the wafers and oil and microwave on high for approximately 1 minute, if the wafers are not completely melted you can stir them and place them back in for 30 second intervals. Once finish stir well to make sure that each wafer is completely melted.
- On a regular sized baking sheet, cover with parchment paper (this assures your baking sheet will stay clear from any mess the wafers leave behind). Insert a medium sized pop stick in the filling in the center of one of the OREO cookies. Dip each cookie, 1 at a time, into the melted mixture, turning slowly making sure to coat both sides evenly. If you have a little too much mixture on your cookie (hey..it happens), gently shake the cookie to remove any excess mixture. Once your cookies have been dipped, arrange them on the cookie sheet and layer them to resemble an actual Christmas tree. Sprinkle with colorful nonpareils.
- Spoon melted semi-sweet chocolate into resealable plastic bag, cut small piece off one bottom corner of bag. Use to pipe lines onto "tree" to resembles wires for Christmas lights. Add candy-coated chocolate pieces for the lights.
- Refrigerate 30 min. or until coating is firm
I liked this idea so much that I checked out the other ideas on the site - there are so many amazing things you can make to impress your friends and family this holiday season. I really want to try the OREO caramel-dipped apples and the ones at Foodsco looked great the last time I was there! Yum!
