You Asked For It!

I had a few recommendations for things I should bake/cook and I have every single one of them! That's right, all three ;) Well, now, the remaining two. I tackled one yesterday and the general consensus seems to be that the experiment was a genius idea, and I'd be the last person to disagree.

When I mentioned to some friends of mine at IU that I was planning on picking up blogging again while I was home for winter break one of them got really excited, describing to me a cookie concoction he thought I should try. Oreos are, hands down, my favorite store bought cookie. Actually, they're really the only prepackaged I ever find myself jonesing for. So, when it was suggested that I attempt to encase entire Oreos in homemade cookie dough I was on board.



Peanut butter makes just about anything better and Oreos are no exception. I'm not going to lie, I've been caught in the kitchen far too many times digging into a Jiff jar with an Oreo in hand, but can you really blame me? Clearly if I was going to cover Oreos in cookie dough it needed to be peanut butter cookie dough.

I figured if this was going to work, big IF, I needed a really think cookie dough. Something that would hold it's shape and not melt away from an Oreo. I ended up picking a peanut butter cookie recipes off Smitten Kitchen, big surprise. My biggest concern, however, was that the Oreo would be chewy. A couple years ago, along with a few other friends, I tried a deep fried Oreo. I'm not much of a fan of fried food and Oreos didn't change my mind. The Oreo was chewy and Oreos should not be chewy, their crunch is half their identity! If my cookies ended with chewy Oreos I was not going to be a happy camper.



But Sally and I decided to give it a go and laid out a sheet full of cookie dough encased Oreos. Crossing our fingers and holding our breath, we popped them into the oven and anxiously waited to see what 12 minutes of baking time would do to them.

Turns out putting these in the oven is actually a brilliant idea. What isn't a brilliant idea is running into the refrigerator with the tray of cookies you just pulled from the oven. I killed a couple that went cascading to the floor... but the rest were laid out to cool, unharmed. Don't they look like ravioli? I think they look like giant raviolis. But they're not, they're actually delicious cookies. Check out the inside!

These were a hit. If you're as big of a sucker for a chocolate and peanut butter combo as I am, these are going to rock your socks. They're really easy, too :D If you follow the recipe for peanut butter cookies here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/12/peanut-butter-cookies/, then you've finished the hardest part. We left out the peanut butter chips and chocolate chips because they just didn't seem necessary, but I suppose if you want them, more power to you! Then we evenly covered each Oreo with the cookie dough and let them bake for 12 minutes. I highly recommend you let them cool before biting in. The ones that met the kitchen floor ended up being our taste testers and the Oreos were alarmingly soft when straight from the oven. If you let them cool though the combination of the crunchy Oreo and chewy peanut butter cookie is phenomenal :)

Like I said, I have plans to get to paella and fish stew, two other excellent recommendations, and hopefully I'll be able to before I have to ship back off to IU! In the meantime, if you have anything else to add to my to-make list let me know and I'll try to whip it up!