Flavors by Four: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

Anyone who loves to eat the chocolate chip cookie dough off of the beater raw will love this recipe. Except these dough balls are better because you don't have to bake them and there is no risk of salmonella. I have been working on these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls for 3 days. Not because it should take you 3 days to make them but I just haven't had any extra time lately between work and grad school. It also doesn't help that I'm notorious for starting something and then moving on to the next thing so in reality I probably could've finished them in two days. The first day I made the dough, then the next day I rolled out all the balls and then this morning I finally got a chance to dip them. I'm gonna be very honest only about half the balls even made it into the chocolate to be dipped because we've treated ourselves to a bunch of them before they were finished so I can speak from experience that they are delicious both before and after being dipped.

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup I Can't Believe its Not Butter for Baking & Cookies

3/4 Cup Sugar

3/4 Cup Brown Sugar

3 Tbsp Skim Milk

1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1 1/2 Cup Flour

1 1/2 Cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

8 oz Bakers Semi-Sweet Chocolate Squares

Adapted from: http://sweetpeaskitchen.com

This recipe starts off exactly the same as a normal chocolate chip cookie dough recipe does. Combine the softened butter with both types of sugar in a mixing bowl. On a medium speed mix the ingredients for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the milk and vanilla and mix for another minute.

Once everything is mixed together, slowly add the flour in two small increments on a slow speed until just combined. Then you can gently fold in the chocolate chips. Put the dough in the fridge to harden for about an hour.

On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper roll the dough into 1 inch balls. Since these are for Valentine's Day and I was feeling festive I dyed half of the dough red before forming the balls. If the dough gets too soft place it back in the fridge for a few minutes. The colder the dough, the easier it will be to form the balls without it sticking to your hands. Once all the balls are formed place them back in the fridge for another hour.

In a small microwave safe bowl cut up 3-4 1oz squares of the bakers chocolate. On a low power setting such as 2 or 3 slowly melt the chocolate in 2-3 minute increments, this should take about 5 or 6 minutes in total.

Wait a minute until the chocolate cools down and dip each ball into the bowl using a toothpick. Take 3 or 4 dough balls out of the fridge to dip at a time. Be careful because if your dough ball is warm and the chocolate is too hot it will fall apart and melt into the chocolate. This happen to me, I had to buy more chocolate and start over. Another reason why this was a 3 day process haha oops!

Place the dipped dough balls back on the cookie sheet and when you are finished dipping all of the balls put them back in the fridge. This will allow the chocolate to make a nice hard crunchy coating on the outside. Store them in the fridge in a Tupperware until you are ready to eat them.