Tag: cookies and cream

Dessert: Cookies & Cream Brownies

Original Recipe Here:
https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/cookies-cream-brownies/

This weekend, I decided to make brownies, but I wanted to do something different. I was in the mood for something along the lines of cookies and cream, and I wanted something with Oreos in them, so I found this recipe for a cookies & cream brownie.

Alright, so we need to start with a brownie base:

Here we go! Regular good ol’ fudge brownie base.

You’ll follow the recipe on the back of the box, which is illustrated below:

Yes, we’re going to follow instructions on a box for brownies…for the most part…

Alright, so you have your brownie mix in your medium-sized bowl, go ahead and throw in 3 tablespoons of water, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, and 2 eggs. It should look like the mess below:

Trust me on this…

Once it’s all mixed up with your spatula (or whatever mixing device you use, although a hand mixer would be overkill), it will look like this below:

You almost want to eat all the batter right there and then…

Set the bowl aside, and grab that 9″ x 13″ pan that we all totally have in our kitchens.

For the record, I’ve had this pan the whole time! Seriously! No joke!

After grabbing your giant brownie pan, preheat the oven to 350F.

Line the pan as best as you can with a giant sheet of parchment paper and then pour the brownie mix into it. Distribute it as best as you can while making sure the parchment paper lines up against all the edges.

This might be the most difficult part of the whole recipe…

After you’re satisfied with your distribution of brownie mix, slowly add in your double-stuff Oreos. For the record, you will need a total of 30 of them for this recipe, and 24 of them will go into the brownies themselves.

Try not to eat too many of them…

If you’re wondering, yes, someone at the factory put one of the cookies on the sandwich upside down. I had nothing to do with that.

Once that’s done, the oven should be ready for baking, so go ahead and throw it in the oven. I recommend about 35 minutes for these, despite what the box says.

Not done yet!

Alright, so once that’s done, you’ll have to let the brownies cool off. You will need a few hours to refrigerate the brownie mix so that you can spread the next layer of goodness on here.

*In a French accent* “Several hours later…”

Now we’re ready for the next layer of brownie goodness. First, you’ll need a stick and a half of butter to put into your stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

It’s a buttercream base, so we need to start with…well…butter.

Soften it up as best as you can with your stand mixer.

Eh, close enough.

Next, you’ll add your sugar, milk, and vanilla extract, and then mix it up.

That doesn’t look right…

Did I intentionally put pictures of myself screwing up on my own blog? Yes I did. As it turns out, if you didn’t get enough sleep the night before, you probably wouldn’t have realized that you didn’t read the recipe correctly and put in regular sugar instead of confectioners’ (powdered) sugar.

Alright, anyways, let’s start over, and put powdered sugar in there instead. Throw in a pinch of salt for good measure. I used about 1/8th of a teaspoon.

That’s more like it!

So now that you’ve been doing this correctly the whole time, and didn’t put in the wrong sugar, go ahead and turn your stand mixer on to low, otherwise you’ll get a cloud of powdered sugar in your kitchen. After it has started to mix up, crank the little booger up to maximum.

While the stand mixer is going, you’ll need to cut up the 6 Oreos I told you about earlier.

Almost…
There we go!

Once the frosting actually looks like frosting (and not clumps of sugar and butter), remove the bowl from the stand mixer and stir in the Oreo bits.

Do your best to not lick the buttercream frosting as well…

After you feel satisfied with your mixing, go ahead and bring it over to your cooled-off brownie slab and evenly add the buttercream frosting to the brownie.

Yes I know I need to clean my stovetop…
It tastes better than it looks.

Refrigerate the pan for another half an hour for the buttercream to solidify.

After the buttercream is nice and solid, it’s time for the final layer of chocolate! This step is pretty easy, as you just need about 200g of semi-sweet morsels, and one stick of butter cut into quarters.

One heaping cup!
I feel like I’m channeling Paula Dean at this moment.

Throw the bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds, pull out, and stir.

I was a bit nervous about this as well, as I thought it was going to be way too much butter…

I put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds, and mixed it up again. This was the final result:

Yes that toothpick was for the brownies.

Go ahead and spread it on top of your brownie stack by just pouring it on and evening it out.

It’s not pretty…

Let that refrigerate some more, and then you’ll have a completed recipe!

Yep, pastry chef of the year!

Here’s how it looks on a cross-sectional view:

There’s an Oreo cookie in there somewhere…

All and all, this is a great recipe that requires a lot of time, so if you’re going to make this for a dinner dessert, start early in the morning, or make it the day before. These took a lot of time, but honestly they’re worth it. It’s actually pretty easy, and doesn’t really use anything weird. The only thing you might not have on hand are Oreos, but everything else is stuff you can find in a normal kitchen, even in my tiny apartment.

Ingredients:

Brownies

  • One box of brownie mix from your local grocery store (9×13 inch pan brownie batter)
  • 24 Double-Stuf Oreos

Cookies & Cream Buttercream

  • 3/4 cup (one and half sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 3 cups confectioners’ (powdered) sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 6 Double-Stuf Oreos, chopped (I use Double Stuf Oreos)
  • 1/8 teaspoon of salt

Chocolate Topping

  • 1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 heaping cup (around 200g) semi-sweet morsels (or melting chocolate)

Directions:

Brownie Base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F
  2. Prepare the brownie mix in a medium bowl as per the instructions on the box.
  3. Get your conveniently placed 9″ x 13″ pan and line it with parchment paper. This will make it easy to remove the brownies when done.
  4. Pour the brownie mix into the parchment paper-lined pan.
  5. After evenly distributing it, add 24 Oreos in a neat 4×6 pattern.
  6. Bake the brownie mix for about 35 minutes.
  7. Remove and let cool for a few hours at minimum.

Cookies and Cream Buttercream

  1. Prepare your stand mixer and throw in your 1 1/2 sticks of butter into the bowl.
  2. Run the stand mixer on medium to get it softened up a bit.
  3. Add three cups of confectioners’ (powdered) sugar, along with the 2 tbsp of milk, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
  4. Start the stand mixer on low so it doesn’t throw powdered sugar all over the place and make a mess for you to clean up.
  5. After the butter and powdered sugar come together, add in the 1/8 teaspoon of salt, and turn the stand mixer to high. Let it run for about a minute or two.
  6. While that’s going on, get your 6 Oreos and cut them into pieces.
  7. Turn off the stand mixer after a minute or two, remove the bowl, and pour the Oreo bits into the buttercream. Mix it nicely with a spatula.
  8. After you’re satisfied with the mix, spread it on top of the giant slab of a brownie.
  9. When you’re done, refrigerate it for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Chocolate Topping

  1. Grab a microwave-safe bowl, and add in about 200 grams of semi-sweet chocolate for melting.
  2. Take a stick of butter, cut it into quarters, and put it in the bowl.
  3. Microwave the mix for 30 seconds on normal.
  4. Pull the bowl out and mix the butter and chocolate a bit.
  5. Repeat step 3.
  6. Pull the bown out again and aggressively until you get a picture-worthy bowl of melted chocolate.
  7. Pour on top of the buttercream and even it out as best as you can.
  8. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes at minimum.
  9. Enjoy!

Source of original recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/cookies-cream-brownies/

Week 37: Cookies & Cream Cookies

I don’t think I could have found a recipe with a more redundant name than this one.

For this week, I decided to go back into the theme of “Cookies based on ice cream flavors” and went with Cookies & Cream cookies.

This recipe requires some planning, although I did manage to figure out how to make this on some reasonable amount of impulse. The recipe calls for an egg and half of a brick (I don’t think those are the proper units) of cream cheese to be at room temperature, but you can bring them both to room temperature easily. For the egg, you need a bowl of warm water (not hot) and leave it in there for about 5 minutes. Pull it out, dry it off, and it’ll be at room temperature. The cream cheese is easy: just put it on a plate and microwave it until it’s soft.

You will also need to refrigerate the dough for a minimum of 2 hours, so make sure you have the time to spare.

The only thing that will take some extra time is roughly chopping up the Oreo cookies. The recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups of it, but I think you could get away with a little bit more. Two cups might be pushing it.

Like most previous recipes, I like to whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt), and I also like to whisk the sugars together so they’re more evenly distributed throughout the dough.

It starts off pretty simple: mix cream cheese and butter, add combined sugars, add egg and vanilla, and add the flour mix. Once that’s done, throw in the white chocolate chips and chopped up Oreos. Yes, that’s this week’s random ingredient: Oreo cookies.

This is another recipe that you will want to use your 1.5Tbsp Oxo scooper, as this helps make about 3 dozen cookies. These cookies won’t expand too much, so if you can’t get an exact 3″ between cookies, you can move them a little closer, and you’ll be fine. For using aluminum cookie sheets with a single sheet of parchment paper, bake them for 15 minutes in the oven. They come out very chewy as well.

The slight discoloration is due to the crumbs of the Oreo cookies.

Ingredients:

  • 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 4 ounces (112g) block full-fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  • 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks or 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar
  • 1 large egg, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup (180g) white chocolate chips
  • 1 and 1/4 cups roughly chopped Oreos (regular or Double Stuf)

Instructions:

  1. Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
  2. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese on medium-high speed until completely smooth and creamy. Add the butter and beat until combined (see photo for a visual), scraping down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl as needed. Add granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat on medium-high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
  3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, beat in the white chocolate chips. Add the Oreos and beat on low speed or gently fold in with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon (dough is heavy) until combined. Cover and chill the dough for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator (and up to 4 days). If chilling for longer than a few hours, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
  4. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
  5. Roll cookie dough, a heaping 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie, and place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft.
  6. Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
  7. Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.

Source