Nutty Chocolate Balls

Just when I was thinking I should stop eating sugar and chocolate so much, I ate one of these chocolate things (Jen gave them to me so this is her fault) and decided I wanted to try and make them. Well, mine didn't taste anything like them, but they were good anyway. I couldn't think of a better name for them than "Nutty Chocolate Balls" - maybe somebody else can???

Here's how I made them:

I started off by taking a large package of instant pudding (5.9 oz) and beating it with 1 1/2 or 1 2/3 cups milk, and then adding about 6 oz. of cool whip, and beating it again until it was nice and smooth. Then I dropped plops of it onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Each plop was about 2 tsp. in size. I made about 2 dozen plops and stopped even though there was a ton of pudding/cool whip stuff left.

I froze them for about 30 minutes so they were firm enough to stick a piece of a macadamia nut in the middle and shape into balls. This part was VERY messy and hard to do. I think next time I would freeze it all together in a bowl and scoop out balls with a watermelon baller, or something like that.

I put them back into the freezer for a few minutes and then pulled them out and quickly rolled them in Rice Krispies. Actually, it wasn't rice krispies, it was Crispy Rice - the cheap brand! The crispy rice on the outside made them easier to handle. Then back into the freezer for another 15 minutes or so to firm them up again while I melted the chocolate for dipping. Next time, I would freeze them overnight before dipping so they would be frozen solid. By the time Jon and I were dipping the last of them into the chocolate they were falling apart (since the melted chocolate was hot and they weren't frozen solid.)

Here they are after rolling them in Crispy Rice! See how messy they were?


After dipping them in chocolate, we immediately rolled them in finely chopped walnuts - pecans would work as well - and put them in the freezer to get them firm again, and then put some of them in the refrigerator. And here's the finished product!

Here's what the inside looks like when they are refrigerated (the chocolate shell on the outside was nice and hard, and the inside was nice and creamy):

I liked the refrigerated ones best, but here's what the inside looks like when they are frozen (you can see the macadamia nut):
And here's the leftover pudding/cool whip mixture that I froze overnight. I tasted it and it tastes like a fudgesicle, so now I wish I would have put a popsicle stick in it before freezing.

Maybe sometime: Even though I liked the nuts (macadamia and walnuts), I wouldn't mind trying just the pudding/cool whip ball dipped in chocolate -- no nuts and no crispy rice.