Santa Barbara really brought the best out of The Male Baker. Seriously, all that sun and all those wonderful people just made my baking mind tick! One day, I found some unopened Candy Cane Joe Joe’s (Trader Joe’s style Oreo’s from the States) left over from Christmas and decided to make cookies out of them. Instead of searching for a recipe online or in a baking book, I opted to use my memory bank and make these cookies from scratch. Crazy thing is that they turned out! I grabbed all sorts of ingredients from the pantry and threw in all different goodies including cocoa powder, dark chocolate chips, Candy Cane Joe Joe’s, kosher salt, and even some whole wheat flour.

Makes 30 heaping Oreo/fudgy cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup                Butter, softened
3/4 cup                Brown sugar
3/4 cup                White sugar
2                             Large eggs
2 tsp                      Pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups          Enriched white Flour
1 cup                    Whole wheat flour
1/2 cup               Cocoa powder
1/2 tsp                 Kosher salt
1 tsp                      Baking soda
1 tsp                      Baking powder
1 1/2 cups          Dark chocolate chips
10                          Oreo cookies or Candy Cane Joe Joe’s (5 for dough, 5 for putting on top for presentation)

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 375 F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together until light and fluffy looking.
• Add the eggs one at a time and then incorporate the vanilla.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the enriched white flour, whole wheat flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.
• Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture in 2 additions until incorporated.
• Mix in the dark chocolate chips and 5 coarsely chopped Oreo’s.
• Drop dough in heaping tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets and place the remaining 5 Oreo’s on top of the cookies for presentation!
• Bake the cookies for 9-12 minutes and check periodically so that they do not over bake! The tops will begin to change colour when they are ready. Enjoy!