Over dinner on Friday night, my friend made a well-meant but snarky comment about how blogging about lesson plans that are related to baking is essentially useless. Needless to say, the only things he got to eat after that were his words–none of these delicious, to-die-for raspberry cheesecake-filled chocolate truffle cookies for him!
(Plus, after he heard how many people said they were borrowing the lesson plan for their own use from my chunky cheesecake brownies post, he probably lost his appetite anyway…which was all the better for me, since we had ordered an entire plate of dulce de leche churros that absolutely fantastic.)
They say that when you don’t have an excuse for something–say, for example, to bake an entire batch of chocolate truffle cookies–you’ll be surprised at how readily you invent a real, plausible excuse–say, hypothetically speaking, the need to fill your sample blog with more posts to show your students when you start teaching class next week. Fortunately, I didn’t have to make up an excuse; I had a solid, set-in-stone reason. I, er, needed to fill my sample blog with more posts to show my students. Obviously.
Reason or not, I am so, so, so glad I made these. Not only are they perfectly festive for the summer and berry season–I didn’t get to cut one open to take a photo, but they’re filled with a light pink raspberry cheesecake filling–they’re also possibly the best chocolate cookies I have ever had/tasted/made:
Every good recipe also comes with a story or words of some kind. They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but having a picture with a thousand words to go along with it sometimes makes the picture even more palatable.
My contribution for today is dedicated to my memes lesson plan for the new media class, which I have been working on for over 4 hours on this godforsaken day of days. We’re learning about content sharing and viral memes, so the goal for the students is to do a meme of their own and write a “10 things” list: 10 things ___ do, 10 things all ____ know, 10 stereotypes about ____.” My spin?
10 ways to tell you’re a baking addict, which are as follows:
- Whenever the word “potluck” comes up, everyone immediately turns to you and asks what dessert you’re bringing.
- Every personalized coupon that your grocery store sends you is for something in aisle 10: Baked Goods.
- The ads in your Google side bar all relate in some way to sales for colored fondant and tiered-cake dowels. You’re not sure why.
- Your day looks bleak and prospects for improvement dim when, by 11:49 PM, none of the food blogs you follow has been updated.
- Licking the bowl when you’re finished is not only permissible–it’s a rule.
- Your main form of frustration relief is punching down the dough.
- When somebody asks for “proof,” you ask them to supply the “yeast.”
- You laugh when somebody asks if butter and margarine are the same thing.
- “Softball” is no longer primarily a sport–it’s a state of fudge-making.
- Only the weak are scared of raw eggs. Salmonella has nothing on you.
As I mentioned before, I had been eyeing this chocolate truffle cookie recipe for ages on Allrecipes, but I wanted to do something fun and summer-ish with them, and what better to celebrate than with berries? I found one recipe for something along the lines I was looking for–raspberry cream cheese chocolate cookies–but they seemed sort of lackluster (the “cheesecake” filling only had cream cheese, jam, and confectioner’s sugar), so I went ahead and made my own. At any rate, I think it’s high time that something other than a single recipe dominated the web for such a great dessert idea. I also adapted the truffle cookies recipe to make it richer and (dare I say it? Yes, I do!) even more sinfully delicious than the original.
And so, without further ado, I introduce to you…
Raspberry Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Truffle Cookies
Chocolate Truffle Cookies Recipe
Yield: About 2 dozen
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chunks
Directions
- In the microwave, melt 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips with butter on medium power, taking the mixture out every 20-30 to stir until smooth chocolate is smooth. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whip eggs and sugar until thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Stir in the vanilla and the chocolate mixture until well mixed. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; gradually stir into the chocolate mixture. Fold in remaining semisweet chocolate chunks. Cover and chill (or freeze) for at least one hour.
- Remove dough from fridge and roll into 1-inch balls. With your thumb or index finger, create a deep indentation in each ball and fill with cheesecake mixture (recipe to follow), making sure not to poke a hole through the bottom of the ball. Gently seal the ball by folding the dough over the filling, and pinching the top shut so that you have a nice round chocolate dough ball. When you have finished making and sealing all of the cookies, pop them back into the freezer for an additional 10-15 minutes before baking.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake cookies for 10-11 minutes in the preheated oven, taking care not to let your cookies overbake. (They should be glossy and only slightly crinkled when you remove them from the oven; they will firm up but retain their gooey inner texture after you let them cool.) Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then carefully pull the parchment paper (with the cookies still on it) off and allow them to cool completely on a wire rack. Don’t attempt to peel them off the parchment paper until they have pretty much set, otherwise they will cave into their gooey centers.
- Serve warm, and store any leftovers in the fridge.
Raspberry Cheesecake Filling
Ingredients:
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tbsp. mayonnaise
- 1 1/2 tablespoon raspberry jam
Directions:
- In a medium-sized bowl, beat all of the ingredients together until smooth. You can use these to fill your cookies with; store leftover cheesecake filling in the fridge, or bake it in small cupcake liners for a delicious creamy snack!
