Marblised chocolate and blueberry cream cheese cookies

20 May 2011
by Phuoc

I first saw these cookies on the wonderful Irvin’s blog and thought I had to make it. He was making them for the San Francisco Food Blogger Bake Sale to raise funds to end childhood hunger in the States. When I was in the States last year, one of my cousins took me to a food blogger baker sale in LA and I thought it was the coolest thing ever! Spread across about 4 tables there were cupcakes, macarons, cookies, cakes, lollies, baked savoury items.. I wish we can have a bake sale for food bloggers in Sydney in the near future.

I had some frozen blueberries left over from the time I made these so I thought I’d use them to substitute the raspberries that were used in the original recipe. As I was making the blueberry dough, I was so amazed by the vibrant purple colour that the blueberries provided to the dough. I knew these cookies are going to look awesome with the marblisation of chocolate and blueberry dough.

As I was rolling the balls, I found the dough a little sticky to work with so maybe its best to put the dough in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm up before working with it. Otherwise, get someone to help you out with this process. I was lucky to grab one of my sisters and assigned her to coat the balls of cookie dough in sugar. If I hadn’t, it would have taken me forever to roll out all the dough and coat them in sugar and I would’ve had my hands covered in dough and sugar after a few cookies.

Since there were so many cookies that I had to bake there was no doubt I had to bake two trays at the same time; swapping them between racks halfway through baking. However with the initial 2 trays, what I found with the cookies on the tray that were initially on the bottom was that the sugar coating on the cookies started to caramelise on the bottom of the cookie, making the cookie stick a little to the baking paper for some reason. The ones that were on the top were fine and came straight off. So after this, I placed just one tray on the top shelf to bake and then after 10 minutes placed that tray on the bottom shelf (to bake for a further 5 minutes) and placed another tray on the top shelf and repeated this staggered baking until all the cookies were baked. This seemed to do the trick but every oven is different, mine is gas and doesn’t have a fan. However, I just learnt that apparently if you use one shelf to bake you don’t need the fan but if you are using two or more then use of the fan is encouraged (make sure you lower the temperature of the oven by 10C (50F)).

So how were these cookies? They were pretty awesome if I have to say so myself! When you bite into it, the cookie is soft but slightly dense and chewy at the same time. They are also very addictive! So addictive that one of my sisters probably had a dozen to herself, in one sitting! According to Irvin, these cookies freeze pretty well so you don’t have to feel the need to finish them off in one sitting (I’ve never had that problem because I have my big family to finish it or willing friends I can offload these baked goods to). Just place them into an airlock bag, squeeze out all the air before sealing it and it should be good in the freezer for a month. They are best eaten within 3 days; that’s if they last that long…

Recipe

Adapted from here

Makes ~100 cookies

 

[NB – If you want to make half a batch of these cookies, I’d suggest you make follow the recipe for the blueberry dough. Half the amount of bluberries used and include 1/3 cup of cocoa powder. Skip step 5 and once you have a plain cream cheese dough, divide it in half and place into 2 bowls. In each bowl, add either the blueberry mixture or cocoa powder and mix to combine.]

 

Blueberry cookie dough

1 1/4 cups blueberries

1 cup and 2 tablespoons sugar, keep separate

2 3/4 cups (375 g) plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup (57 g) cream cheese

85 g unsalted butter, softened

Zest of one lemon

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

Chocolate cookie dough

2 cups (280 g) plain flour

1/2 cup (50 g) unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp sea salt

170 g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup (113 g) cream cheese

1 cup (200 g) white sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tbsp vanilla extract

 

Raw sugar to roll the cookies in.

 

For the blueberry cookie dough

  1. Place the blueberries and 2 tbsp of sugar in a small saucepan on medium heat, stirring constantly for about five minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
  2. Place the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl and mix to combine.
  3. Cream the butter, cream cheese and cup of sugar until light and fluffy.
  4. Add the lemon zest and egg and beat until incorporated. Repeat with the egg yolk.
  5. Add the cooled blueberry mixture and mix until well combined.
  6. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix until well combined. Set dough aside.

For the chocolate cookie dough

  1. Place the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl and mix to combine.
  2. Cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  3. Add the egg and beat on medium speed until incorporated. Repeat with the egg yolk and vanilla.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix until well combined. Set dough aside.

Making the cookies

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Line several baking trays with baking paper.
  2. Pour the raw sugar into a small bowl or plate.
  3. Grab a heaped teaspoon of the chocolate dough and blueberry dough and roll them together into a sausage. Then squish the dough into a ball, creating marblised effect.
  4. Roll them in the sugar and place on the cookie sheet.
  5. Repeat with the rest of the dough, leaving about 5cm (2 inches) apart as they will spread. Bake for about 15 minutes until blueberry part of cookie is slightly brown (you don’t want it to be too brown so the blue colour still remains).
  6. Cool cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Print this recipe

22 Comments

  1. chocolatesuze

    oh man feel free to offload baked goods to me! any time! really!

  2. Tina@foodboozeshoes

    Wow – those are some funky lookin’ cookies!

  3. Jacq

    I love the colour of these cookies! The sugar coating reminds me of those Arnott’s Nice cookies hehe

  4. MissPiggy

    Seeing as I had the pleasure of scoffing four of these on my own (I gave one to The Baking Lady at Work) I can attest to their awesome-ness! Baking Lady LOVED them…thought the texture was similar to the biscuits that go into Tiramsu…

    So Phuoc, what treat are you bringing me next week? *__*

  5. Karen | C&C

    Food blogger bake sale? Hehe awesome idea. “If you build it, they will come…” πŸ˜›

  6. muppy

    They look so different – i love the sound of them though, yum. I have loads of issues with my oven, always trying to figure out how to bake things, having to turn them around and swap shelves. I do have a fan but i don’t think it works properly, drives me insane – can you tell? πŸ˜‰

  7. Peter G @ Souvlaki For The Soul

    Oh yes please! I think the Bake off sounds like a great idea!

  8. Simon @ the heart of food

    lol! As if they’d last 3 days. These look pretty nice. Love the marbleness πŸ™‚

  9. mademoiselle dΓ©licieuse

    “Rocks washed up on a beach”…BAHAHAHAHA!

    But seriously, mmmm…sugar coating!

  10. Kitchen Butterfly

    The cookies look lovely. I’m sure they would taste great too…slightly frozen. I know, I know but each man to his own!

  11. anh@anhsfoodblog.com

    these cookies sound good! cream cheese cookies! I need to try.

  12. Richard Elliot

    The cookies look great. Making 100 is a serious effort!

  13. betty

    looks delicious and isnt it funny how much time goes into making biscuits and how much time it takes for them to be eaten hah a:O)

  14. Sticky Penguin

    Those look *fabulous* – such a great mix of flavours with the blueberries to offset the chocolate a little. I’ve never come across marbled cookies before, but I’m already thinking of all sorts of varieties to test out (after I give these a go!).

  15. Sticky Penguin

    Thanks so much for your sweet comment – am currently doing a little SQUEE dance at my desk that the brownies went down well… bringing food to (much more experienced) food bloggers is (ahem) slightly terrifying! Much less so once I found how lovely and friendly everybody was too (did I really think there’d be fangs or something?). I must confess the brownies the other night were sprinkle-less and instead had a heaped addition of dark chocolate chips, but the sprinkles were definitely an interesting experiment, and one I think I’ll repeat. Am thinking of lavender-infused sugar and purple sprinkles…

  16. Susan

    They look so good. Very easy to pop into your mouth!

  17. Phuoc

    Chocolatesuze: lol we should do a trade one day.. πŸ™‚

    Tina: Indeed they are! Kinda like a space rock of some sort..

    Jacq: I should’ve taken a picture of the dough before baking (but I guess you can see it in the second picture) but I’m surprised that it still retained most of its colour after baking.

    Missy Piggy: Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed them!

    Karen: The thought of a bake sale sounds awesome since we have so many awesome bakers in Sydney. Will have to let you know if I get around to organising it. I know there’s a vegan blogger bake sale in Sydney so I’ve asked them procedures and regulations required to set up a stall πŸ™‚

    Muppy: Maybe try staggered baking next time? I know some baking methods are different for most recipes. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon. Is your oven electric or gas?

    Peter: I’ll be sure to call you along to it if it happens πŸ™‚

    Simon: Yeah I’m surprised that it all went so quickly.. I did offload some to friends and my neighbour though πŸ™‚

    Mademoiselle dΓ©licieuse: Yeah I know.. I had no intentions to make it look like that at all but after Ant mentioned it, I can see why he would think that.

    Kitchen Butterfly: lol Slightly frozen? I’ve never tried that before but if you say so… I won’t knock it πŸ™‚

    Anh: I think I need to make you a batch when you come back up πŸ™‚

    Richard Elliot: Thank you! I would’ve been ok if the dough wasn’t as sticky but I’m lucky to have some help πŸ™‚ Baking always soothes me though so rolling out 100-plus balls of cookie dough doesn’t bother me too much.

    Betty: That’s so true! πŸ™‚

    Sticky Penguin: Thank you! I like being able to play around with flavour ideas for baked goods as well. Let me know if you do end up trying to make them and what varieties you think of πŸ™‚

    HAHA that’s funny… You’re welcome! You have nothing to worry about.. We food bloggers are a friendly bunch whom enjoy food for what it is and appreciate the effort that someone puts in to cook/bake for us. I’m not a huge lavender fan (it just reminds me of potpourri) but keep up with those experiments. I look forward to meeting you at the next event, just come up and say hi if you recognise me πŸ™‚

    Susan: Thank you! Yes and that’s a dangerous thing too because you end up eating a lot before you realise it πŸ˜›

  18. Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella

    That marbling effect is really beautiful! They look like beautiful pieces of jewellery πŸ™‚

  19. Phuoc

    Lorraine: Thanks! πŸ™‚

  20. Nicole

    These look delicious Phuoc. P.S., I would definitely be into a food bloggers bake sale!

  21. catty

    Ohhhhh looks so good! blueberries and chocolate rolled in sugar heheh.. ain’t nothing wrong with that!

  22. Phuoc

    Nicole: Thank you! Will keep you posted if I manage to organise something πŸ™‚

    Catty: Amen!

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