National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

So Friday morning, I woke up, still super proud of my accomplishments from the night before, and went straight to my computer to check my Facebook. I am a “fan” of the Food Network on my Facebook and it often shows up in my news feed. That fateful day it said that it was national chocolate chip cookie day. I freaked out. All I could think was “I have to make something.” I was frantic; I had woken up quite late, like 2 p.m., but I knew I would have to make cookies.

As soon as I had seen this I already had an idea what I wanted to make. I am intrigued by the idea of the chocolate and orange flavor pairing. I don’t know why, but it just sort of seems to peak my interest. At the same time though I had wanted to make something with white chocolate chips for a long time. Weeks. It was actually really starting to bother me, that’s how badly I wanted to make something with white chocolate chips. I thought about it all the time: at work, on the metro, while reading my book… its scary!

I decided on orange chocolate chip cookies but with white chocolate instead of the more common dark or milk chocolate. Yea, that sounded good… but not perfect. It needed a twist. Something you wouldn’t expect (although I will admit, orange and white chocolate is not quite expected haha!) Epiphany! Cream cheese! I like the texture that cream cheese gives to cookies: a softer, lighter texture. It also adds a nice subtle flavor to the cookies that I believe enhances the taste of the cookies and though it’s quite a weird mix I was sure this was to be a success, so here it is:

Orange Cream Cheese White Chocolate Chip Cookies (Creamsicle Cookies)

½ cup Earth Balance

½ cup Cream Cheese

½ cup White Sugar

½ cup packed Brown Sugar

1 Egg

Zest from one large Navel Orange

2 ½ cups AP Flour

1 teaspoon Vanilla

¾ teaspoon Baking Soda

½ teaspoon Salt

1 2/3 cups White Chocolate Chips (one bag)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream the earth balance, cream cheese, white sugar and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in egg, vanilla and orange zest.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt and baking soda.
5. Mix into the creamed mixture, one third at a time.
6. Stir in the white chocolate chips.
7. Drop tablespoonfuls onto a lightly grease baking sheet.
8. Bake for about 13 minutes, until golden brown around the edges.

This yielded 31 cookies for me.

These cookies are so tasty!! Omg I have to stop myself from eating them all. Even Pizza has admitted she wants to gobble them all up. I am definitely making these cookies again! I am so proud of them; I just want to share them with everyone I know. I am tempted to make a few more batches so I can pass then out to my family, friends, and at work…and of course so I can have more for me… oh and Pizza can have a couple too!

Panda