Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake

Well, once again, I have been seriously lacking in blogging...I blame it on my new internship and adjusting to life after school (in addition to juggling multiple other responsibilities)! Well, I made this cheesecake back in May as one aspect of Pat's birthday dinner, so I've had the pictures for quite some time! Ha. I have to admit that this is one of the best cheesecakes I've ever had (and made).

The first part of making this cheesecake was to make the chocolate chip cookie dough (recipe from Marcy Goldman's A Passion for Baking). Now, if you're considering making this and don't want to make the chocolate chip cookie dough yourself, by all means, buy store bought cookie dough. I made the cookie dough using the recipe she recommend, however, feel free to use your favorite CC cookie dough recipe.

Tender, Buttery Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup room temperature unsalted butter

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups chocolate chips or coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Cream butter and sugars until very smooth (3-4 mins).

3. Add vanilla and eggs and blend well.

4. Fold in flour, baking soda, and salt and mix well (2-3 mins).

5. Add chocolate chips.

6. Put onto baking sheets and bake for 10-13 mins. for smaller cookies or 14-18 mins. for larger cookies.

Now, I clearly didn't cook these cookies, because I needed the dough for the cheesecake, but if you wanted to do that, you could :) Instead, I cut them into 1 inch chunks and set them aside for use in the cheesecake.

Onto the cheesecake! Here are the ingredients:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake

Crust

1 1/2 cups shortbread cookie crumbs (I used Lorna Doone cookies).

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 tablespoon sugar

Pinch of cinnamon

Cheesecake

1 batch of chocolate chip cookies

2 pounds of cream cheese at room temperature

1 (14 ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

1/3 cup whipping cream

1/3 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Toss crust ingredients into an ungreased 9 or 10-inch springform pan and press into pan bottom.

3. Blend cream cheese with condensed milk, sugar, salt, eggs, vanilla, flour, and whipping cream. Blend until smooth, about 4-6 mins.

4. Pour half of the batter into the pan; scatter most of the chocolate chips and half of the cookie dough chunks into the batter.

5. Top with the remaining batter, cookie dough chunks, and remaining chocolate chips.

6. Bake in a water bath for approximately 45 mins. to 1 hour, remove from bath, and place on a cooling rack. Make sure your pan is wrapped in a double layer of tin foil before you place in the water bath.

**Note: this is a deviation from the original recipe. I prefer to bake my cheesecake in a water bath, while the author of this recipe prefers to bake for half of the time with the oven on, then reducing the temperature and finishing in a reduced temperature oven. Finally, she turns off the oven and opens the door, letting the cake cool in the oven for an hour.

7. Refrigerate overnight then enjoy!

Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Lord! I just realized that I haven't posted in over a month!!! Yikes. Anyway, graduating from veterinary school, looking for a place to live, and moving leaves you very, very busy. Soooo, to break from my baking/cooking hiatus, I wanted to try another, different style of chocolate chip cookie, the olive oil chocolate chip cookie. I got the recipe from this wonderful blog I happened across called Crepes of Wrath.

Well, let me tell you, they were delicious!!! Seriously, they are crispy around the edges and soft and chewy in the middle...like the perfect cookie. I was worried that they might taste like olive oil, but they don't...they are just super tasty.

There are a few notes about the cookies. The dough does NOT taste good, like traditional chocolate chip cookie does. The dough is very wet feeling and sticky; however, do not add flour to make it less wet/sticky, because that would ruin the cookie...they bake up perfectly. So, here's the recipe. Let me know what you guys think! Cheers!

Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs-room temperature
1 or 2 tablespoons of milk (I used about 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon)
1 cup chocolate chips (I would just use the whole bag of chocolate chips...1 cup was definitely not enough, and I don't normally love a ton of chips in my cc cookies).
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. Combine sugars, vanilla, and olive oil. Beat in the eggs one a time. Gradually beat in the flour mixture, then add in a tablespoon of milk to make the dough a bit firmer, maybe another tablespoon if you need it/if you feel the dough is too sticky/dry (I used about 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon).
3. Roll the dough into balls with your hands and place on a greased and/or lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly golden and set. Mine took about 10 and a half minutes. These overbake quickly, so it’s better to take them out a bit early if you’re unsure. Allow to cool for a bit on the baking sheet, then move to another surface to finish cooling. For me, if I didn't cool them almost completely on the cookie sheet, the centers of the cookie would stick to the pan, so I just let them cool a while and then took them off.
This is what the sugars, vanilla, and olive oil looked like once they were combined--much like wet sand.
This is after the addition of both eggs...really watery!

This is the dough once everything was added...see how wet it looks? It doesn't feel this wet...in fact, it's actually quite stiff.

Finished cookie! They puffed up quite a bit while baking (they looked like they might be cakey), but they flattened up once they cooled. Enjoy!

Candied Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello internet :)

Since I have started this blog, I have started paying attention to other baking/cooking blogs. One blog in particular that I am a huge fan of is the Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy blog and as I was reading it the other day, I came across a recipe for Candied Bacon-Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Well, I was immediately intrigued, because I love the taste of salty and sweet together, so I decided to make them. Needless to say, they were quite interesting. They've been described as "delicious chocolate chip cookies, with a smack of bacon" (anyone that gets that reference gets bonus points). I used the candied bacon recipe from the above mentioned blog and used my own chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Candied Bacon

8 slices of bacon
1/2 cup of brown sugar, divided

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
2. Place the bacon on a cooking sheet lined with foil, shinny side down.
3. Cover bacon pieces with half of brown sugar.
4. Bake for 15 minutes.
5. Take bacon out of the oven and flip; cover with remaining brown sugar.
6. Bake until a deep mahogany color. Remove from oven and cool on a cooling rack.
7. When cooled completely, chop into fine bits.

**Note: immediately move bacon to the cooling rack or else the sugar will harden the bacon to the foil.

I know they look burned, but they are not!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, soften
3/4 c. of granulated sugar
3/4 c. of brown sugar (plus a little bit more...probably about 1/8 c.)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 c. milk chocolate chips
Candied bacon, finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt and mix thoroughly.
3. Cream butter, sugars, and vanilla together until creamy.
4. Add the eggs to the butter/sugar mixture one at a time and mix thoroughly.
5. Gradually beat in the flour mixture until well combined.
6. Stir in chocolate chips and bacon.
7. Bake for 9-11 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and put on cooling rack.
8. Eat and enjoy.

Finished Product!

Well, internet, enjoy these cookies if you decide to make them :) Look for Chicken with Mushroom Cream Sauce soon!