Oreo Balls That Don't Need Refrigeration. Is there anything butter can't do?!

This isn't even a real recipe, but it is important enough that I wanted a post about it.

Oreo balls are amazing. They are one of the easiest and most popular things in my entire food prep repertoire. If you haven't tried making them, I can't recommend them enough. Wherever you bring them, people will love you. There's just one problem. They contain a block of cream cheese, which means they have to be refrigerated. While this isn't often a huge deal (they normally disappear too fast for this to be too much of an issue), it can present a problem if fridge space is short, or if they are going to be sitting out for a while (for a picnic, etc), or if you want to use them for something like event favors.

Oreo balls are already delicious and addicting, but I wanted to find a way to cut out the cream cheese without compromising the flavor, yielding an Oreo ball that would be just as delicious, but could be stored at room temp.  This St. Patrick's Day was the perfect opportunity since I was planning to make a batch of Shamrock balls (mint Oreo balls) anyway.

Quick and Dirty Creepy Treats: Easy Halloween Food Ideas

Now that October is here, I'll still be posting Autumn-themed stuff, obviously, but I also wanted to get started on some Halloween-themed posts. So, for the next 4 weeks, my posts will be Halloween-centric with some smatterings of Halloween history and lore thrown into each post.

For this post, I am dusting off some really old ideas and pics (I was notoriously bad about documenting my creations before I became a blogger) of quick and easy Halloween treats that come together in a snap but are super fun to do. These treats are collected from ones that I and my friend Lauren made years ago when our lab hosted our Department's Halloween Social. Everyone in my lab pitched in and made Fall and/or Halloween-themed desserts, and this post is dedicated to just a few of them, the "quick and dirty" treats, to borrow a phrase we use often in lab. They are not very sophisticated, but they are cute and easy, and would make a great starting point for brainstorming new Halloween treats. These are all great ideas especially if you want something to do with little kids, because they are all decorating-oriented and not oven-oriented. For this post, we have quick Witch Hats, Critters, Ghosts, and Dirt. Unfortunately, I made these a while ago, so I don't have pictures of intermediate steps, but the directions are straightforward so this shouldn't be a problem. To be honest, they are so simple that, in most cases, you can just figure out how to assemble them from the pictures!

Oreo Balls, Patriot Style

I’m just going to toss these out here, because I’ve posted cake ball recipes numerous times, but never Oreo balls. They are part of the same culinary family, as far as I’m concerned, and wickedly easy. Even easier than their cake ball cousins, if you can believe that, because – get this – you don’t have to bake anything. I’ll say it again: you don’t have to bake anything.

And you only need 3 ingredients:

• Package of regular Oreos (less 7 cookies or so), crushed
• 1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened
• Chocolate or candy coating for dipping

Brownie-Bottomed Ice Cream Cake with Fudge Sauce

Ice cream cakes. They are, hand's down, one of the most versatile cakes imaginable. A home-made ice cream cake is a blank slate of endless possibilities for crust, ice cream flavors, fillings, and toppings.

This year, for my mom's birthday, I decided to make her an ice cream birthday cake, according to her specifications: brownie-bottomed, and filled with Turkey Hill Moose Tracks Frozen Yogurt. She left the rest up to my discretion.