Stuffed Cookies

Today, you get two Pinstrosities in one post! It's like we're taking an awesome submission and stuffing it inside another awesome submission to create a bigger and more awesome post. Hey...that sounds oddly like those cookies we've seen all over...

The Original Pin

http://picky-palate.com/2011/01/06/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

I remember seeing these on Facebook before I got on Pinterest, but they've been big for a while now. That recipe above is Jenny's original recipe and was one of the first stuffed Oreo recipes to go crazy online. Go check it out. 

Since then though, people have tried variations on the recipe and some have come out fine...some not so much. Here's one that didn't quite work:

The Pinstrosity

Stephanie sent in the above photo and this is what she said, " I used a different chocolate chip cookie recipe so that could have contributed to the failure, but also when I put the trays in they were tilted which caused the cookies to slide."

Different recipes sometimes work out great and other times it can bite you in the bum. We've seen a lot of pictures online with stuffed cookie results like Stephanie sent in. It's happening to a lot of people. What's the issue? The wrong kind of dough. If you remember back to our Cookie Bowl posts, sometimes you really have to have a specific dough for these to work. Some Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes will work, and others won't. Generally, chocolate chip cookies spread quite a bit while cooking. This works great when you're making Chocolate Chip Cookies. This doesn't work so great when you're trying to make a cookie bowl or a stuffed cookie. What can you do to combat that? Try out Jenny's recipe, she tweaked it so it won't run all over. If you want to try out a different recipe, do a test bake first. If it spreads too much, it probably won't work. DON'T use store bought Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. It will not give you happy results with stuffed cookies. 

One variation on the whole stuffed cookie idea, and one which helps the whole spreading problem, is this one:

The Original Pin

http://www.sugarloco.com/2012/09/stuffed-cookie-cups-recipe/

What's fun though...they didn't stop at just Oreos. Check this out:

http://www.sugarloco.com/2012/09/stuffed-cookie-cups-recipe/

Jenny @ Sugar Loco posted these cups online for all of us to drool over. I think there must be something about the name Jenny that makes you a cookie genius...or maybe it's just a coincidence. Either way...these two Jenny's are cookie geniuses. This Jenny has the problem of the spreading dough fixed by baking the cookies in muffin tins. 

Stephanie (a different Stephanie than the first Pinstrosity in this post...today is full of double names!) and Hannah found this recipe and decided to give it a try. Here's their story:

"One day my friend Stephanie and I decided to try and make the stuffed Chocolate Chip cookies that are supposed to be baked in a muffin tin. We instead tried to bake them on a cookie sheet, but made them in the exact same way as on the original pin. Not being a professional baker, I thought the cookies would keep the cup-like shape that they had before being baked.....WRONG!"

The Pinstrosity

"Instead we ended up with what I think look like chocolate chip pancakes, with a piece of a Reese's in the middle. Another thing that may have made a difference is that instead of using an entire candy bar we cut them into fourths. Because the candy bar pieces were so small, they rose to the top of the cookie. Although they didn't turn out as planned, they still tasted okay! Our cookies started off at half-dollar size but we ended up with 4-5 inch pancakes."

So when you're playing around with Chocolate Chip cookie dough and working on new creations, just remember that the dough will spread. You either need to contain it (as in the cookie cups), or tweak the recipe some.