I love browsing the internet for new recipes to try. Baking being my passion and to-go activity when I either feel a need to be distracted from my daily routine or whenever I need to relax (yes!!! Baking relaxes me and sends me to a zen state; I automatically migrate to the baking websites.
One of my favorites right now is “Handletheheat.com”. Lots of recipes there have been noted down in my book (of course, I am still old school there..) to try sometime.
This was one of those times. Cheesecakes are one of my favorite desserts to dig into. Chocolate of course, is my “happy” food to go to. Combination of both? Yes, the cream cheese stuffed chocolate cookies.
It is originally by Melanie from “GarnishandGlaze”.
My younger son had plans to go to a dinner party at a friend’s place this evening. Of course, it would be nice to take something, right? Mom to the rescue!!!
Cream cheese, the eggs and butter were all out on the counter since 6 in the morning (bringing them to room temperature is the first tip for baking beginners).
Breakfast out of the way, I got to making the cookies. My husband and I shared the first cookie out of the oven, and as usual, he loved it!!
Filling the dough with the cream cheese mixture is tricky, but I will try to make these as easy as possible to make. Hope you enjoy making and eating these yummylicious cookies as I do.
Cream Cheese filled Chocolate Cookies (makes about 30, 2-inch cookies)
Makes about 30 cookies
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
For the cream cheese filling:
Cream cheese (softened to room temperature)- 6 ounces.
Granulated sugar – 3 tbsp
Pure vanilla extract – ½ tsp.
For the cookies:
All-purpose flour – 1 ¼ cups plus 2 tablespoon
Cocoa powder – ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoon
Baking soda – ½ teaspoon
Salt – ¼ teaspoon
Unsalted butter – ½ cup
Granulated sugar – ½ cup plus some more for coating the cookies
Brown sugar – ½ cup
Eggs – 1 whole and 1 yolk
Pure vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon
Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.
Cream cheese filling:
In a small bowl, beat together, with a beater, the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla till smooth.
Cover and refrigerate till slightly firm (at least one hour).
For the cookie dough:
In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt with a whisk or spoon.
In a large mixing bowl, with a hand mixer, beat the softened butter with the sugars till light and fluffy (about 2 minutes).
Add the whole egg, beat till incorporated and then the yolk along with the vanilla and beat well for about 2 minutes more.
Mix in the dry flour mixture in batches till well combined. Do not beat too much after the dry ingredients have been added.
In a small bowl, pour some granulated sugar.
Grease your hands with little oil, take about an inch in diameter ball of dough, flatten on oiled palm with the center slightly thinner than the sides, take about half a teaspoon of cream cheese , place it on the flattened dough, bring the sides over the cream cheese, seal the edges and roll into a ball.
Roll the balls in the sugar till fully coated and place on the baking pan. Repeat with the remaining dough.
Place the round balls of filled dough about 2 inches apart. With the bottom of a greased glass or metal cup with flat bottom, press all the cookies gently to flatten them slightly.
Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes, remove the pan from oven. Cool on pan for a minute.
Remove and cool completely on cooling racks.
Store in airtight containers.
Note:
These cookies come out slightly crisp, but tend to soften a bit after some time due to the cream cheese.
After about a day, I normally refrigerate it. If you need the cookies crisp, bake again at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes.
Another variation would be to use about 1/2 tsp of mint extract in the cream cheese filling, Chocolate and mint are a great combination.
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