Orange Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, when I’m looking at cookie recipes, usually the first thing that I focus on is the amount of vanilla and brown sugar it uses. I love both flavors (especially together), and find that I’m usually adding an extra half-teaspoon to full teaspoon of vanilla, and ignoring those that use less brown sugar than plain granulated. For Father’s Day, I had wanted to try making Orange Milano cookies. I knew that they were one of my dad’s favorites, because of the chocolate orange combination. When researching mock recipes for Milanos, I stumbled across a chocolate chip cookie recipe that used orange extract and claimed that they would come out tasting like Orange Milanos. I was extremely excited, and tried out the recipe to take to my dad’s for Father’s Day dinner. They turned out delicious, and he loved them! That recipe was from this blog, Cooking Classy. I did like how they turned out, but when I was imagining them, they fell a bit short of what I like in a cookie. 

I decided to try and create a version that could incorporate a creamier texture to go with the orange. That’s how I came up with these Orange Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies. I like them because they have a slightly lighter orange taste with the cream cheese, and they don’t use eggs….so A.) if you don’t have eggs, you can still bake delicious cookies without having to go to the store, and B.) you can have as much of the cookie dough you want without worrying about eating raw eggs haha. Anyways, here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

6 oz (3/4 cup) softened cream cheese

4 oz (1/2 cup) softened unsalted butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ tsp orange extract

1 tbsp orange zest

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 cups flour

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Yield: 24-30 cookies

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare two cookie sheets with parchment.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the sugars, cream cheese and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy.

Add in the vanilla, orange extract, baking soda and salt and mix until all the ingredients are incorporated. Scrape down the bowl. 

Add the flour, and mix on low until just combined. Either mix in the chocolate chips by hand, or on low speed.

Using a cookie scoop (icecream scoop) or spoon, portion the cookies evenly onto the cookie sheets. Using your fingers, gently push down each cookie so that it is slightly flattened (the cookies do not spread very much on their own). Bake for 10-14 minutes. Because of the cream cheese, the tops of the cookies do not brown as much as the bottoms, so keep your eye on them; they could take more or less time depending on how much you mix the dough.

These cookies go extremely well with a nice coffee or tea! :)