Ultimate Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies for Baking Partners Challenge

Who in the world does not love cookies? Everybody has grown up with a few cookies as their favorite. I have grown up with a famous cookie called Parle G; we call them glucose biscuits too. It is really tasty like shortbread. Also it is one of world largest selling cookies. We call them biscuits which is no relation with any breakfast biscuits that we get over here.  Usually amma will give when we back from school and having tea or coffee. 

Nowadays I buy Parle G  from Indian store and keep it as emergency snack on our car trips.  However instead of biscuits my princess call them crackers or cookies as she is busy working in back seat while her papa or mama is driving the car. And her little brother will be crying as he is bored sitting in the car seat. 

After I started baking I tried oat meal cookies, peanut butter cookies, and chocolate chips cookies. I love to try various combos and various tastes which are not possible to get it in the store.  So I am excited as this month we Baking Partners did a theme for our baking partner challenge that is cookies; we have 3 cookie recipes to try from our incredible partners. I tried all three. 

Tina of  Pinays cooking  Corner suggested Ultimate Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies, Priya of  Priya’s versatile recipes suggested  Cornflake cookies and Reeni  of  ( Cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice) suggested Homemade Oreo Cookies: Fauxreos

Since I had some cream cheese left from making cream cheese Chantilly, I thought I will try ultimate chocolate cream cheese cookies first. They are every chocolate lovers dream and ultimate, cake like soft cookies, will have lingering taste you love to remember even after it is finished. We love it.

Then next come cornflake cookies, for that I need some cornflakes. However in my house no takers for ordinary cornflakes, my princess won’t eat them but like to play with it and invite all the ants around world into the home. So I stopped buying them. But she likes Post Great Grains cereal, which are not really cornflakes. So I used post great grain cranberry almond crunch which is in my hand. It turned out great. I loved most, and got the chance to finish the entire batch.

Next I made homemade Oreo cookies, for that I even bought a packet of Oreo cookies to compare the taste. However, I failed and Oreo won. It turned out to be slightly on the bitter side. May be because I  used dutch cocoa.  So I have to use slightly heavily on filling resulting in a big no from my husband; but my princess loved the filing. I again got the chance to finish lots of cookies.

I halved all the three recipes and made approximately around 25 cookies each. It is really easy to put together. I try to spaced the time so that we can enjoy the cookies, however, I got bonus in most of the case. 

Please take a look at each baking partners contribution as they are different in their look and story behind them is different, even though it is came from same recipe. Some partners are creative in changing them into egg- less versions. 

Here I am presenting the Ultimate cream cheese cookies, take a look at it. If possible try it; you are going to be in chocolate dream. I will post the rest of recipes in separate posts.  Here go the recipe.

First grab the ingredients from the pantry.

Melt chocolate in a small bowl by microwave them for 25 seconds and set aside. Stir well to ensure the uniform melting.

Sift, flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and set aside.

In a bowl  stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment cream butter and sugar and then add egg and heavy cream and stir once again  to combine everything thing. To this fold in melted chocolate and chocolate chips. Wrap with   plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 2 hours. 

By the end of refrigeration, preheat oven to 350 F and line the cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Scoop about 1 tablespoon of cookie dough and slightly flatten them with hand.  Leave 2 inches in between.

 Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes until they set in center. Remove from the oven and leave it in cookie sheet for about 5 minutes. Then transfer them to cooling rack until cookies cooled completely. 

Keep the cookies in airtight container for about 3 days, if you lucky it will remain 3 days. In our house it finished with two days.

 Take a look at it piece.

                                                               Print Recipe

Ultimate  Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies

Adapted from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Prep Time    10 minutes + 2 hours refrigeration time.

Cook Time    12 minutes

Serves    48

                                                                                                       
Ingredients:

• 2 ¼ cups (255g) all purpose flour
• ¼ cup (32g)  unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp. (8g) baking soda
• ½ tsp. (3g) salt
• 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, softened slightly
• 4 oz (113g) Cream Cheese at room temperature
• 1 cup (201g) granulated sugar
• ½ cup (110g) dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. (30ml) heavy cream
• 1 tsp. (5ml) pure vanilla extract
• 3 oz. (85g) bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
• 8 oz. (225g) of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, sift the flour with the cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In a bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, combine the butter, cream cheese, granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the eggs, heavy cream and vanilla until blended. At low speed, beat in the dry ingredients.  Add the melted chocolate and chocolate chips and beat just until incorporated.  Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for at least 15 minutes or up to 2 hours.

 Scoop heaping tablespoons of cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them two inches apart. Bake for 12 minutes until the cookies are just set; shift the baking sheets for top to bottom and front to back half way through. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a rack to cool completely.

Note: The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Variations:

• Instead of chocolate chips you   can try butterscotch chips .