the best ever cookies & cream cookies

I've been neglecting my roots lately. And no, I'm not talking about my hair. Those are so far gone that labeling my overgrown roots as ombre is totally passable. 

Let's put the hair drama aside, I'm talking about my baking roots. 

Like many a home baker, my journey through the wonderful world of sugar started with pre-made cookie dough. Looking back, I shudder at the very thought of cookie dough that isn't congruent with my regularly scheduled fantasies of mountains of dough made with fancy European butter, Tahitian vanilla, or twenty plus dollars worth of quality chocolate. You can say I've spoiled myself, I just like to think I take my cookie dough very seriously. 

Given that I haven't posted a cookie recipe in more than a hot second and I was beginning to quite literally feel the absence of brown sugar-laced mounds of deliciousness from the blog, I'm sharing one of my absolute favorite recipes today: the famed cookies & cream cookies. 

These cookies are a total fan favorite. Every baker has an arsenal of perfected cookie recipes, but these are easily the most requested of the bunch. I oblige at every request, mainly just so I can eat some of the cookie dough before I bake them and wrap them up for my friends. Beware cookie dough bingers! This stuff is LETHAL. 

I could write an entire fan fiction about me and these cookies, but to spare you the ranting, I have developed a super helpful list of why you should drop everything and bake these immediately: 

1. Uh, there are COOKIES inside of COOKIES. This is a good enough reason on its own. (Side note: Can we make #cookieinception a thing?) 
2. Because dipping Oreos in milk is the greatest and these cookies are the cookie equivalent of going through a whole sleeve of Oreos and a glass of milk in five minutes flat. 
3. The cookie dough itself is out of this world. Like... eat-four-cookies-worth-of-dough-every-single-time good.  
4. There's cream cheese and brown sugar involved, so these bad boys will stay soft for days and days. This means that you can have a cookie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for five consecutive days without them going stale on you. Caloric hoarding, ftw! 
5. You'll be introduced to the wonderful world of milk powder, which is essentially the MSG of the baking world. 
6. THEY HAVE ACTUAL, REAL LIFE GROUPIES. (I'm looking at you, Ali, Ashley, Abbey, and Brooke.) 
7. Do I need to mention the fact that there's Oreos in them again? 

Just bake the damn cookies. Seriously, you won't regret it. 

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Graham's Notes:

• My special secret to the deliciousness of these cookies lies in the addition of milk powder to the dry ingredients. Milk powder makes creamy, milky flavors more pronounced. Milk powder can be found in the powdered drink aisle of your local grocery store, or by the powdered baby formula. (But please, for the love of God, don't use Similac in these cookies.)
• When baking with white chocolate, I try to stray away from baking chips, as they are generally of pretty poor quality. Unless you're using the Whole Foods brand of baking chips, do yourself a favor and buy individual bars of white chocolate and chop them up yourself. I prefer Lindt or Callebaut. 

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Cookies & Cream Cookies 

• 4 oz. (half a block) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste or extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons instant milk powder ** (see note) 
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 2 cups coarsely chopped oreos (about 18-20 cookies)
• 1 cup chopped white chocolate 
• sugar for rolling

make: 

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, combine oreos with 2 tablespoons of instant milk powder and set aside. 

In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the cream cheese and butter until light and creamy, about a minute. Add the brown sugar and egg and beat on medium-low speed for 3 minutes until pale and fluffy. Stir in vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Fold in the coated oreos and white chocolate. 

Measure out 1/4 cup portions of cookie dough. Roll each cookie in sugar and arrange on the prepared baking sheets, providing at least 3 inches between each cookies. Bake the cookies for 12-13 minutes, until edges begin to brown but the middle is still relatively gooey! Cool and enjoy with a big glass of milk!  

Pumpkin Spice Cookies & Cream Cookies

Hello (virtual) world, I'm home! 

I hope you guys had a wonderful past few days and didn't miss me too much. ;)  I spent my fall break in New York City and it was an absolute whirlwind. I went on a little food industry tour and visited the Martha Stewart Living, Food52, Food & Wine, and West Elm offices, saw a few shows, visited the Jeff Koons exhibit at the Whitney, met up with some old friends, fainted on a random lady while I was in the emergency room with a friend who fainted at dinner, took a trip out to Valrhona's amazing new L'Ecole du Grand Chocolat in DUMBO, wrapped myself up in lots of sweaters and scarves, and conducted a lot of super scientific research (aka, eating dessert.) 

It was wonderful. Alas, I am back in New Orleans, which means I get to immediately go back to destroying my kitchen all in the name of food blogging. I just scheduled out the next month or so of desserts I want to make and the list is absolutely wild. Like, I-was-super-conscious-about-people-looking-over-my-shoulder-while-I-was-writing-it-all-down-and-judging-me level wild. 

In the meantime, we're going to keep things a little more classic around here. Can we all agree the pumpkins are the best part of fall? Because they are. While I'm not crazy fond of actual pumpkin desserts (I prefer to use them for more important purposes), pumpkin spice is where it's at. 

The stretch from October to April has always been my favorite time of the year, mainly because of all of the special festive holiday items that fill up my cart at the grocery store. I don't need these things, and frankly I never buy m&m's at any other time of the year, but there's just something about a special flavor or color mix that instantly makes me reach out and grab a few bags to "try."  I use that term loosely. 

Case in point: Pumpkin Spice Oreos. See, I was pretty certain that these would be absolutely disgusting when I saw these, but Nabisco really delivered. It only took me a taste of one cookie to get the mixer out and bake cookies with them. 

I have a few specialities when it comes to baking. You know, the recipes that people will ask me to make for them and continue nagging me until I finally cave in. Cookies & Cream Cookies are one of these. There's something so intoxicating about these cookies. It's probably the fact that there's a bunch of cream cheese and two cups of crushed up Oreos in the dough. Or maybe it's because I roll them in sugar before baking (because they obviously didn't have enough sugar in them in the first place). Whatever it is, they're *insert expletive of choice* delicious. While my traditional recipe is what I bake most often, this pumpkin spice version gives the classic cookies & cream cookies a definite run for its money.

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PUMPKIN SPICE COOKIES AND CREAM COOKIES

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

• 1/2 cup cream cheese, softened

• 1 cup brown sugar, packed

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp. vanilla

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 tsp. salt

• 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice 

• 3/4 tsp. baking soda

• 1/2 tsp. baking powder

• 2 cups Pumpkin Spice Oreos, chopped 

• 1/2 cup cinnamon chips

• sugar, for rolling

Preheat the oven to 350 F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar and egg, mixing for 3 minutes more. Mix in the vanilla. Add all of the dry ingredients and combines. Fold in the chopped cookies and cinnamon chips.

Roll the cookie dough into balls, then roll them in sugar, and place them on your prepared baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes, do not overbake. 

Cookies & Cream Tart

I started my junior year of college this week. 

Junior.... COLLEGE.... Um... WHAT? 

It's bizarre, really, how fast we grow up. It feels like just yesterday I was running to the office in middle school because I ripped my shorts straight down the middle because I dropped it like it was [a little too] hot on the playground. (True story; I was a wild 5th grader.) I can vividly remember the first day of 8th grade at my high school, exactly what I ate and where I sat at lunch that day, how my mom picked me up and I immediately proclaimed how much I hated it. I remember the first day of senior year, thinking about how ready I was to graduate, but how equally scared I was to leave my comfort zone. Just as vividly, I remember walking blocks upon blocks from my dorm in the East Village with the most painful blisters on the backs of my ankles for the hot minute I was attending college in New York City. and now, here I am... only two years away from being done with school forever. (Don't you dare mention grad school, just no.) 

The first day back at school after summer break has always been my least favorite day of the year. Almost routinely, my first days have always been marked by so much knowingly unnecessary, yet unavoidable anxiety. This time around was no different. I was awkward when I introduced myself, my voice started shaking whenever I had to tell my teachers that I went by Graham and not Anthony (my actual first name), and once I got home, I may or may not have chugged a watermelon martini and went to bed at 9pm out of pure exhaustion. But this year, I was actually, wait for it .... excited to go back. I guess I really am getting old. 

To celebrate my second-to-last first day of school, I decided to whip up something special. Remember: it's scientifically* proven that sugar can calm your nerves on the first day of school. 

* Disclaimer: Though Graham Blackall likes to believe he is a scientific authority, he is just a lowly boy with a sugar addiction. 

Well, attempted to whip up something special. I don't know whether or not it's because of school, but I'm having an off week in the kitchen. In 24 hours, I have ruined three different recipes. I had this lovely idea of celebrating back-to-school with a peanut butter and jelly dessert. Cute, right? Well... my oven didn't agree. First, I made a peanut butter pavlova — the meringue fell. After that, I decided to make a big giant vanilla cake that I would going to cut into a giant pb&j — my eggs scrambled when I added them into the batter. Finally, I had the genius idea of making a concord grape cake (strange, I know) with peanut butter mascarpone frosting. I had spent hours perfecting the recipe and as I was taking the cakes out of their pans, every single one of them cracked in half. This is when I realized that PB&J just wasn't going to work out. 

Luckily, I've had this recipe waiting, ready to be posted since last week. It's the most delicious white chocolate mascarpone tart in an Oreo crust. Aaand it's no-bake, so you have less chances to mess it up! To top it off, I made an Oreo whipped cream and covered the whole tart in cookie pieces and white chocolate shavings (not pictured). Absolutely amazing and pretty damn painless to make. 

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Oreo Crust 

• 10 oz. Oreo cookies
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/8 tsp. salt

In a food processor or blender, process the whole Oreo cookies (including the cream) until they turn into fine crumbs. Add the crumbs to the melted better and the salt. Mix until they form a workable crust. Press the crust into your tart pan. Freeze the crust while making the filling. 

White Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

• 8 oz. high-quality white chocolate, chopped
• 3/4 cup plus two tablespoons heavy cream 
• 8 oz. mascarpone, room temperature
• 1/4 cup icing sugar 

In a large bowl over simmering water, melt the white chocolate until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. 

Whip your cream until soft peaks form. 

In another bowl, mix together the mascarpone and confectioner's sugar until combined. Add in the cooled white chocolate and combine. Fold in the whipped cream. 

Pour the filling into the prepared crust. Refrigerate overnight to set. Serve with Oreo whipped cream, cookie pieces, and white chocolate shavings. 

Oreo Whipped Cream

• 10 Oreo cookies
• 1-1/2 cup heavy cream
• sugar, to taste
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

In a small bowl, cover the oreo cookies with heavy cream. Let sit for 1-2 hours in the refrigerator to infuse the cream. Strain the infused cream into a bowl and whip with the sugar and vanilla extract until you reach your desired consistency. Use immediately or store in the fridge.