Book club treats.

Last night I had the pleasure of hosting book club! I love to read AND plan themed get togethers so this was a wonderful evening!

Our book was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. It was a great book and I absolutely recommend it! For those of you who don't know, the book is basically about a young man who hops a train during the depression that just so happens to be carrying a circus! 

Naturally, I went with a little circus theme for the treats but forgot to take pictures of most of what I made including mini-caramel apples*, mini-corn dogs, and lemonade (although lemonade wouldn't make a very interesting picture....it was important in the book!)

But thankfully, I did take pictures of the star of the show...

Chocolate Chip Oreo Stuffed Cookies!

 The circus is all about indulgence - deep friend anything and things that you don't normally eat! This cookie easily falls into that category! I first saw this idea on Pinterest and immediate loved it for book club!

They are so easy to make...I just put one scoop of dough on the cookie sheet, followed by the oreo and topped with another little scoop.

If I ever make these again, I will use far less cookie dough beneath the Oreo because after baking - they kind of went everywhere. I used a spatula and pushed the half baked dough back toward the cookie and after the upper part was cooked, I had to flip the cookie because the lower half was still pretty much raw cookie dough...not a bad thing in my book...but I cooked it longer anyway!

 The final product was fantastic!!

* Back to the caramel apples, I ended up using melted Werthers Original Soft Creme Caramel...not caramel apple dip. I tried using the dip first, but everything just slid right off the apple and didn't harden at all. The melted caramel chews were the perfect consistency. I dipped each in sprinkles which helped prevent the caramel from sticking to the little paper cup. My tip - make these just before guests arrive. If they sit too long, the caramel starts to get feisty :-) And I also dipped each apple in powdered sugar prior to dipping so it would stick a little better. It wasn't a perfect process but it worked for the most part!