Peanut Butter Gingerbread Cookie Balls Recipe

While I was at the Kraft Innovations Kitchen BlogEats conference I got to eat a lot of food.  A LOT!  They provided us with recipes for all the fun things they made and one of the recipes was for OREO-Pumpkin Cookie Balls, which are similar to the cake pops that are the latest fad, except you use crushed cookies and cream cheese instead of cake and frosting.

We also got a large package of Kraft Foods products when we returned home from the conference and in it were some seasonal items (be on the lookout for a giveaway soon for all this yumminess in a box that will help you prepare for holiday entertaining!).  One of those products was Jell-O Gingerbread Instant Pudding.

I became inspired by the OREO-Pumpkin Cookie Balls that I tasted at BlogEats, but was in a bit of a dilemma as my family doesn’t care much for cream cheese (crazy right?! I know!).  So I came up with my own recipe using OREOs and the Jell-O Gingerbread Instant Pudding and substituted the cream cheese with vanilla icing.  This recipe is sweet but super delicious!

Peanut Butter Gingerbread Cookie Balls

Makes about 2 dozen.

Ingredients

10 oz. of Peanut Butter OREO Fudge Cremes
1 package 3.4 oz size of Jell-O Gingerbread Instant Pudding
1 tub 16 oz. Vanilla Frosting (separated into 2 equal parts)
1 tub 16 oz. Chocolate Frosting (I used Duncan Hines Chocolate Amazing Glazes)

Directions

1. Crush the Peanut Butter OREO Fudge Cremes until they are in very small pieces, as fine as you can get them.  I put them in a Ziploc bag and then stepped on them (!) but a rolling pin or a food processor would work just as well.

2. Add the entire package of Jell-O Gingerbread Instant Pudding and 1/2 the tub of vanilla frosting to the OREO cookie crumbs making it so that you have a mixture to a consistency you can mold.

3. Roll the ‘dough’ into 1-inch balls and place them on a sheet of wax paper.

4. In a microwaveable bowl, place the rest of the vanilla frosting in the microwave for about 15 seconds.  It should be melted down and a liquid consistency.  Using a teaspoon, pour the icing overtop of the cookie balls to coat them.  The icing will pool around the bottom of them, that’s okay, you can remove that portion of the icing from the cookie balls when you’re ready to plate or store them.

5. Wait until the vanilla icing is set and then take a few tablespoons of the chocolate icing and microwave it to the same consistency (this is the part where I just used the Amazing Glazes).  Drizzle the chocolate icing on top of the iced cookie balls.

ENJOY!

I was invited to participate in a behind-the-scenes blogger conference with the Kraft Kitchens, for which Kraft provided full travel expenses, meals and accommodations and product samples, coupons and premiums, however my opinions are completely my own and I have not been compensated to publish positive or negative reviews of the event or products associated with my experience.