Among the numerous items I didn't get to cross off my summer bucket list this year, the Milk Bar and Taco Bell collaboration stings to the core.
Most people never even had a chance to get near the majestically named Strawberry Bell Truffle. For the briefest moment in August, it was available at only a handful of locations in California and New York. As a Manhattanite, this unique dessert was within my grasp, but it eluded me nonetheless.
And the mere thought of "vanilla cake studded with strawberry pieces and soaked in strawberry milk . . . filled with a sweet corn fudge center . . . coated with strawberry and sweet corn cake coating, studded with tiny pieces of Taco Bell's Crunchy Taco Shell" is enough to haunt the dreams of even those whose lips have never touched the treat.
While I'm always up for trying to recreate a lost dessert, I knew from the description that I'd never make anything quite that elaborate. Instead, I thought, maybe I could just run a mental highlighter through a few keywords — fudge, strawberry, taco shell — and arrive at something pretty damn good. Sacrificing the corn and cake would make for a more streamlined process yet still hit the flavor high points.
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Here, a favorite, no-brainer fudge recipe gets a few tweaks, then rolls around in crushed taco shells mixed with fruity cereal for a strawberry-adjacent tang. And voilà — you've got a creamy, crunchy, salty-sweet confection that disappears the second you make it. If you want to lower the bar even further, just use the coating as a crust instead and slice your would-be truffles into fudge squares. Any way you serve 'em, they're truly mouthwatering.
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Inspired by Milk Bar and Salon's Quick & Dirty
Ingredients
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- 12 ounces white chocolate chips
- 2 tablespoons strawberry jam
- 1/2 cup Froot Loops, Fruity Pebbles, Trix or other fruity cereal
- 3 crunchy corn taco shells
Directions
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Break up the taco shells, along with the cereal, in a food processor and blend into crumbs. (You can also put both ingredients in a Ziploc bag and break them up with a rolling pin.)
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Line an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan with parchment paper and lightly grease it.
- Over low-medium heat, warm the condensed milk. Add the white chocolate and stir until it's completely melted.
- Now, choose your own adventure. For a more low-effort, fudge squares experience, pour the crumbs evenly into the bottom of the pan. For truffles, reserve the crumbs and move on to step 5.
- Pour the warm fudge into the prepared pan and spoon in the jam. With a knife or skewer, swirl the jam into the fudge.
- Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour. For fudge squares, simply slice and serve.
- For truffles, put the crumb mix in a shallow bowl. Spoon out evenly sized balls of the fudge and roll them in the crumbs, pressing gently to coat. Keep uneaten portions refrigerated.
Cook's Notes
If you don't have a bag of white chocolate chips on hand, you can also reach for 12 ounces of your favorite white chocolate, chopped.
The same goes for the crunchy corn taco shells. An easy substitution is corn chips, and you only need 2 ounces.
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