Oreo cookies. Butterscotch Pudding. Cheesecake. M&Ms. Chocolate Chips. Cookie Dough. This may not be my first cookie-cheesecake rodeo, but it might be my most fun one yet. Because these cheesecake squares are pure, unadulterated fun. It might not be evident from their messy, careless cookie-cheesecake pattern, but I exercised a great deal of restraint when making these cheesecake squares. They are fun, but they were carefully crafted fun in order to create the ultimate dessert with the perfect balance of flavors and the best arrangement of textures. Initially, I wanted to just mix everything together, drop it in a pan and go; a hodge-podge dessert made with abandon (what an easy recipe that would be to write, too).
But there is order and balance here, a protocol for maximum flavor and texture (you can have fun, even with protocols, right?). The Oreos work best when restricted just to the crust: a perfectly crisp snap of resistance. The cheesecake (which I initially wanted to actually mix with the Oreos and the cookie dough) stands alone in flavor and texture–you’re not mindlessly wading through a jumble of flavors, instead you realize it when you bite into one of the soft clods of cookie dough (which are in turn punctuated with hard pieces of chocolate) and then the creamy cheesecake. and then the crunchy Oreo cookie crust. You can enjoy all the flavors independently while at the same time relishing the way that they pair with one another (a reckless hodgepodge would have made a confusing mouthful, one taste indiscernible from the next). Between the pudding mix, cornstarch, and additional egg yolk added to the cookie dough recipe, you end up with soft bites of cookie that aren’t difficult to bite through, even when kept cold. While the butterscotch pudding adds a nice flavor to the cookies (I use pudding in my kitchen sink cookies and it works just as well here), if you’re vehemently not a butterscotch fan you can substitute a different flavor (I’d recommend vanilla in this instance). However, I actually don’t consider myself to be a huge butterscotch fan, but I do like the subtle flavor it lends to these squares and won’t ever make them any other way. While checking on these as they baked through the glass of the oven door, I felt like a little kid in a candy shop–eyes glazed over with sugar-lust, jaw slack, nostrils flared as my breath fogged twin ovals on the glass (I’ll take that one and that one and, oh, definitely that one). And then I felt like a little kid while I was eating them, and, like a little kid, I maybe sort of almost wanted to cry once they were gone.
More Recipes You Might Like:
Chocolate Chip Cookies (The WORST) Monster Cookies Icebox Cookies Oreo Cheesecake Mini Cheesecakes
Enjoy!
