ShareThisToday’s recipe is for Oreo Chunk Chocolate Chip Cookies. I wish I could take credit for the idea of putting Oreos in chocolate chip cookies, but it was Val’s. My only change, aside from cutting the recipe in half, was to add some dark chocolate chunks.
Val used this recipe as a start. It’s unique in that it calls for cream of tartar, an ingredient I find quite interesting. Cream of Tartar is derived from argol, which is a crusty substance that appears inside wine casks during fermentation. I read that McCormick gets its argol from Italy, where they send very small people into the wine casks to do the scraping. The crusty crystal stuff is refined into cream of tartar, which is an acidic salt – a good acid for baking, because it doesn’t add extra moisture to the batter like vinegar, buttermilk or other acids. It can be used alone or combined with baking soda to make baking powder. This particular recipe uses a little bit of cream of tartar along with baking powder. The end result is a big, not-too-thick cookie with lots of wrinkles and folds in it.
Oreo Chunk Cookies
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour (8 1/2 oz by weight)
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
10-12 broken (into halves and thirds) Oreos plus some cut up dark chocolate
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat butter and sugars until smooth. Add vanilla and eggs and mix until combined.
In a separate bowl, stir together flour, soda, salt, baking powder and cream of tartar. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir until incorporated. Stir in oreos by hand.
Divide the dough into about 12 equal sections and shape into balls – try not to crush up the Oreos too much. Place dough balls 3 inches apart (6 per cookie sheet) on parchment lined or non-stick cookie sheet and flatten tops slightly. You don’t want to flatten it too much, you just don’t want it to look like a ball. Press pieces of dark chocolate into the ball. Bake for about 15 minutes or until brown around the edges. Cool slightly on cookie sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to set: remove from baking sheet. Cool on wire rack. Makes about 12 big cookies
This recipe sounds great…there’s nothing my guys love more than Oreos and chocolate chip cookies so they should love this! I’ll let you know. BTW, I check this blog daily – I LOVE it!
Violetcandy, I hope you do report back.
BTW. I noticed this cookies cake out a little fatter and less flat after being chilled overnight. Also, I made the cookies fairly large for this picture, but they can also be made much smaller — just adjust the baking time accordingly.
I’ve got my dough chilling right now – I’ll bake them up later and let you know how they were received!
I chilled the dough for about 4 hours before I baked the cookies and I kept them the same size as in the recipe. Everyone LOVED them. I liked how they were crisp AND chewy. Definitely something I would make again. I need to do some experimenting with cream of tartar in some other cookie recipes. Do you have any suggestions?
Hooray! Glad you liked the texture of those cookies. I think my only complaint about that recipe is the cookies don’t stay fresh for very long — maybe two days and that’s it.
As for the cream of tartar, most recipes for Snickerdoodles use it. I may make Snickerdoodles next week for this guy who I know wants them.
Sorry that posted so many times…I was using another computer and I should have known better.
I’m not sure that the cookies will even last two days in this house so it shouldn’t be a problem!
Now I’m off to make rice crispies squares with the bottoms dipped in chocolate for my son and his class.
I have searched for this recipe forever! I saw these cookies probably 8 years ago and I loved them. When I returned to buy them again it was like they never existed, no one knew what I was talking about and they never came back. Very mysterious. So, thank you!!
I made these today and halved the recipe (used 1/4 cup each of brown and white sugar and 1 egg, everything else was directly halved). They are good! I added about 1/4 cup of mini chips. And it’s really, really tasty dough! ;o)
I was wondering if there was any other ingredients to replace the cream of tartar? i could not find any
I love these cookies…We made them growing up and have been dieing to find the recipe! Thanks!!
I made them without the chocolate and they tasted amazing. They were a big hit at the superbowl party. I also crunched the cookies up a little more than halved and added a few extra.
:}