Tebow Treat Time: Football Oreo Truffles and Embellished Soda bottles

Saturday was a big day here in Denver--the Denver Broncos played the New England Patriots that night in a big playoff football game. We've enjoyed cheering for the Broncos and especially Tim Tebow this year, so when a friend invited us over to watch the big game, I decided to make some fun treats to take along.

These are Oreo Truffles, rolled into the shape of footballs instead of regular round balls. I first saw these on Bakerella's blog WAY back before she hit the bigtime--probably around 2004-ish? It was on her old blog and there is 2008 Football truffle post on her current blog, but not the original one. When I first saw these way back then, I was blown away--I had been making Oreo Truffles on my own long before I ever saw them on her blog, but it never occurred to me that I could make them in other shapes! I've never had a good excuse for making them until now, and they were a big hit at our party.

If you've never made Oreo Truffles, you should! I like them far better than the cake balls or cake pops that Bakerella is famous for making popular. Oreo Truffles are made of two ingredients: a package of Oreo cookies (not Double-Stuf! it throws off the proportions) and a brick of cream cheese. Process the Oreos into crumbs, then add the cream cheese and process until it makes a thick paste. Roll them into balls (or footballs!), chill, then dip into chocolate. I use chocolate almond bark for dipping (not a fan of the Wilton melts in general unless I need colors) and vanilla almond bark with a teeny tiny #2 Wilton decorating tip to pipe the stripes and stitches.

Several months ago I was shopping at Marshall's and found 4-packs of this fun, bright-colored Jelly Belly soda. I bought the only two boxes of orange soda, intending to embellish them like I did in 2010

to give to Maren's teacher this past year for Halloween. However, I completely forgot about them until after Halloween! I couldn't just keep them for next year because they have an expiration date sometime this summer, but I really wanted to do something fun with them besides just, well, drinking them. When we were invited to the football party, I knew just what to use them for!

I didn't have enough of the Jelly Belly soda, so I ended up buying a few 6-packs of Orange Crush at Wal-Mart. I went very simple on these, since I knew they'd just be put in the recycling bin, and just cut strips of blue scrapbook paper and attached it to the bottles with double-sided tape.

They looked especially cute all lined up in my vintage Hires soda crate with orange lettering! Wal-Mart also carries 6-packs of Strawberry Crush, which you could similarly embellish for Valentine's Day.

In addition to the truffles and the sodas, I also took guacamole & chips (Wholly Guacamole gussied up with fresh chopped tomatoes & cilantro) and a batch of these delicious Strawberry-Rhubarb Bars. That may seem like a really out-of-season dish for January, but I have rhubarb in the freezer and strawberries were on sale this last week at Sprouts, so it wasn't strange at all! They were delicious.

Tebow and the Broncos lost spectacularly to the Patriots, an outcome which we didn't find altogether surprising. Still, it was fun to get together with friends and fun to have a chance to make cute food!