Strike when the iron's hot

What iron is hot? - I baked cookies today! So I must blog now, if not, it will be like the chocolate chip muffin post (not done as of now, but muffin baked like 1-2 weeks ago).

Philly cheese are getting expensive... so previously when there is sales, I bought two (very greedy!). Then as usual, they will sit in the fridge till near expire then I get very kan cheong. So I used one on the pineapple cheese cake, and I am determine to try a drop cookie recipe with cheese next. As my hersley mini chips are also near expiry, I also need to clear them.  I look through the usual blogs but could not find a cream cheese chocolate chip cookie recipe, so I googled.

I took the recipe from here.  I converted the measurements of the ingredients in oz to gms. So I had reading like brown sugar 110g, granulated sugar 150g, cheese and butter 115g and flour 156.25g. I felt that granulated sugar was on the high side, so I reduced it to the same as brown sugar. I think it should be fine since there are chocolate chips. In the end, I still feel that the cookies are on the sweet side. I did not even put enough chocolate chips as I did not have enough (as what recipe asked for).

It was fun looking at the butter and cheese creaming. The batter looked so smooth and after the egg, it looks more "droppable". I started to worry it will be too soft to hold its shape but after adding the flour,  I had a soft dough. I do not know how big should a drop be, so I just put a big lump. In the end, some of them spread out and joined together. It is also fun looking at the lumps spread out into circular cookie shape.

Finally , after almost 2 hours since I measured out the ingredients, I had around 2 dozen or more biscuits. The baking time per batch is very long. I took at least half hour for a batch but the recipe only says about 10 minute or so. Thus, it is either my cookies are too big, or the oven really gone haywired.

The cookies were so soft when I first tried to remove them from the tray to the wire rack. It gave me a small shock, worried that the inside are not cooked. It did firm up a little after cooling . The cookies are crispy on the outside, and soft in the inside. I wonder if that is the characteristic of drop cookies. However, I did not detect any cheese.

Here they are :-

With this cream cheese chocolate chip drop cookies, I am going to join the challenge - Aspiring Bakers #6 : Say Cheese (Apr 11).

The recipe is taken from http://southernfood.about.com/.

Ingredients :

                     4oz of cream cheese, room temperature
                     4 oz of butter, room temperature
                     1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
                      1/4 cup granulated sugar
                     1 large egg
                     1 1/2 tspn vanilla extract
                      1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
                      1/2 tspn baking powder
                      1/4 tspn salt
                       1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips or milk

Preparation :

Hear oven to 350 F. Grease a cookie sheet , or spray with nonstick cooking spray, or line with silicon liner.
In a mixing bowl with electric mixer, beat cream cheese, butter, and sugars until very light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla until smooth. Slowly beat in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold in chocolate chips.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepare baking sheets (s), leaving about 1 inch between cookies, these cookies spread very little. Bake for 10 to 14 minutes, or until the cookies are set lightly browned around the edges.

Here is a cross section close up of the biscuit to end this post.

I am submitting this entry to this month's Aspiring Bakers #6 : Say Cheese (Apr 11).