Cookies and Cream Bars

Hello friends, it's been awhile. I took a little unplanned three month sabbatical while exploring my new city. I wish I could say I've got a beautifully decorated home and a ton of new recipes ready...but I don't. Instead, I've been drinking a lot of local beer, eating some really amazing food, and seeing some beautiful places. San Antonio had a handful of gems but this city is FULL of them. Now that the weather has cooled off I can turn on the oven without making the entire house unbearably hot. The change in the weather is making me crave all the fall things and I can't wait to get back in the kitchen.

When I saw Trader Joe's new cookies and cream cookie butter I had no doubt that it would be as good as it's speculoos counterpart. Trashing up some bars with it was my first thought and these guys are the result. They have a fudgy brownie-like bottom and gooeyness on top. You can also enjoy the cookie butter on it's own with your choice of dippers. This new cookies and cream flavor got me thinking about making my own homemade cookie butter, which I'm going to have to try out next. Try my Chocolate Cookie Butter Bars if you love the original speculoos flavor. 

Chocolate Cookie Butter Bars

The other half is so good about his dieting self discipline...I kind of feel bad for him...that his wife bakes what he shouldn't be eating like all the time. While I was baking these bars he said I was evil and I had better get them out of the house. My co-workers, on the other hand, are very happy to have me. Because of him I now have food guilt. When I go to the grocery store with him our cart is mostly filled with fresh fruit and vegetables...when I go by myself it's sugar, chocolate, and all kinds of junk food. I keep thinking the people in line in front of me are watching me load up the conveyor belt...judging me...thinking wow what a fatty. That being said this last trip to Trader Joe's along with the cookie butter and loads of chocolate, I swear I had everything pumpkin in the store...shame or not...I was getting this...all of this!

For those of you that have not tried cookie butter yet, stop what you are doing and go to the store right now and buy yourself a jar.  It's cookie butter at Trader Joe's or Biscoff at other grocers. This stuff is so amazing that I've been found eating it right out of the jar with a spoon. Trader Joe's just came out with Cocoa Swirl Cookie Butter and I just had to grab a jar. If fact, just telling you guys about it right now made me get up and go grab a spoonful. I'm powerless against it. I knew I wanted to make some bars with it and to make these bars even better I chopped up some of their cookie butter filled dark chocolate bars and threw them in as well. You will not be disappointed!

Chocolate Cookie Butter Bars

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter swirled with Cocoa

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

4 Trader Joe’s speculoos bars (cookie butter filled dark chocolate), chopped

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 13x9 baking pan with foil and spray with non stick cooking spray.

2.  In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.

3.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using a large bowl with a hand mixer) cream together butter, cookie butter, granulated and brown sugar, until light and fluffy.

4.  With the mixer on low beat in the egg and then the vanilla.

5.  Then gradually add in the flour mixture until just combined.

6.  Turn the dough out into prepared pan and smooth out with a spatula, bottom of the measuring cup, or your hands, whatever works.

7.  Sprinkle the chopped chocolate bars over the top, pressing down slightly, and drizzle the sweetened condensed over the top.

8.  Bake in preheated oven for 17-23 minutes, mine spent 20 minutes in the oven. Then let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before lifting out of pan and cutting.

Chocolate Cookie Butter Tart

So I love Trader Joe's cookie butter. What I love more than their cookie butter is the cookie butter (speculoos) stuffed chocolate bars...like really LOVE! In fact I think I have a problem. They were so good I would always get a couple or three or four when I checked out, and then they ran out! The next month or so they had not gotten any in, so I did what any addict would do, I improvised. I bought a jar of the cookie butter and a bar of chocolate and dipped my chocolate bar in the cookie butter, perfectly healthy I assure you. I had to manage my cravings this way for a while until they finally got them back. Now I just rake them all in my basket with my arm and hope the cashier doesn't judge me for how many chocolate bars I am buying. So in honor of my favorite candy bar and to use the extra jar of cookie butter I bought in crisis, I decided to create this tart.

This definitely satisfies the chocolate/cookie butter craving, thank goodness so I don't have to buy so many chocolate bars. It's a crumbly chocolate shortbread crust that also has crushed speculoos cookies baked into it, with a creamy cookie butter middle, and topped with a smooth chocolate ganache. It's so good! It is rich so a little piece will do or you can pair it with a little whipped cream or maybe even a little ice cream.

Chocolate Cookie Butter Tart

Shortbread Crust
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup speculoos cookies, crushed (plus extra for garnish)
pinch of salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg yolk, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Middle Layer
Ingredients:
7 oz (1/2 jar) Trader Joe's crunchy cookie butter (that's it)

Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients:
3oz milk chocolate, chopped
2oz dark chocolate, chopped
3/8 cup heavy cream

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl mix together flour, cocoa powder, cookies, and salt.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or large bowl using a hand mixer) cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in egg yolk and vanilla.

3. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until it comes together.

4. Press into a 9in' tart pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prick the bottom of the crust several times with a fork. Bake in preheated oven for 18-22 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

6. While crust is cooling, start on ganache. Heat cream in saucepan over medium heat just until the sides start to bubble.

7. Pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate and let set 2 minutes, the whisk until smooth.

8. Spread cookie butter over cooled crust then spread ganache over cookie butter, sprinkle extra cookie crumbs as garnish. Refrigerate until ganache is set.

You can serve it at room temp like I did or with a bit of a chill on it, whatever you like.