Aside from Bruno Mars and a couple (not many) good commercials, the highlight of my Super Bowl was food (duh). We trekked out to the 'burbs to watch the game with my mom, stopping to visit RJ's parents on the way; my mom's one request? Bears' dip. If you are going to Google search the dip - please note this is not the actual name... we have no idea where we got the recipe, but our family has made it on Bears game days for as long as my memory has been operational and, thus, my sisters and I just call it Bears' dip.
With such a salty dip, I just knew we'd need something just as intense on the sweets side.... I mean, right? Around the holidays, I found this recipe by Inside BruCrew Life on Pinterest and had been wanting to try it, but kept forgetting to pick up pudding mix at the store. We've had a package of Candy Cane flavored Oreos that I've been trying to stay away from.... and I finally grabbed some pudding... so bright and early on Superbowl Sunday I woke up to crank some cookies out.
The recipe I finally concocted was a mix of the one mentioned above and the amazing Simply Gloria's Oreo Pudding Cookies, without the drizzle. The end product... was insane. The cookies were a huge hit with both RJ's parents and my mom.
A completely non organic day, but we did start it off with broiled grapefruit....
Oreo Chunk Pudding Cookies:
Sometimes you need a little reading to fill the 10 minutes of waiting between baking batches....
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter - room temp
- 1/3 cup brown sugar (if the recipe doesn't specify, I use a mix of light and brown)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 (4.2) oz package of pudding mix (I used vanilla)
- 2+ teaspoons of vanilla (you may have noticed that I use a Mexican vanilla - it has a LOT more flavor, a bit of spice, and bakes off without needing the acidy bite most other types need. It's a heck of a lot cheaper, too!) I say 2+ because, as much of a no-no as this might be, I can't ever stop with the required amount - and I do think baked goods taste better that way!
- 1 egg
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon flour
- 15 or so Oreo Cookies (I think I wound up only using about 12)
- 1-2 cups chocolate chips
My grandpa was a baker and, while we didn't do much baking together, one of his tips that I've always taken very seriously is how to cream the butter for cookies properly. This will make a HUGE difference in your finished product. Make sure you are using room temperature to slightly cooler temp butter. Use your paddle attachment if you have a stand mixer, and start beating the butter while adding your granulated sugar followed by the brown sugar. Whip, or "cream" these together for about 4 minutes so that the sugars cut through the butter, starting to create an airy texture.
Add your egg and vanilla next - then be sure to continue whipping the ingredients for another 6 minutes. You should always cream your butter for about 10 minutes. Some people in my life have found this to be an obsessive and unnecessary process, but my neurosis was recently confirmed while watching In the Mind of a Chef where Momofuku Milk Bar's genius pastry chef, Christina Tosi, mentions the same process (imagine my giddy excitement - she's brilliant and we use the same priming ritual for cookies!).
The finished product should be beautifully creamy, fluffy, and have what appear to be minuscule air bubbles:
One way to avoid over mixing your dry ingredients into the creamed butter & sugar mixture is to combine them together. Fluffy flour = better baked goods, so I took Simply Gloria's advice and whisked the four, pudding powder, and baking soda together before adding them into the dough.
Now the fun begins.... Crush up your Oreos, cream and all, into smallish chunks - I wanted bigger chunks, so I didn't totally crush them up, but left them in bits.
And mix them with the chocolate chips into your dough!
Simply Gloria recommended baking the cookies on the bottom rack of your oven to avoid over cooking the tops. I think if you have a non crummy oven, that might work, but in our apartment the oven is slightly unreliable, so I wound up moving them to the center rack which worked just fine.
I use tin foil or parchment paper to line baking sheets - cookies slide right off. If you make flat tops on the cookies, they turn out much thinner, but you can always make them chunky by leaving them in round balls (1-2 inch balls, depending on how large you want your cookies to be).
Bake each sheet for ~10 minutes at 350.
Bears' Dip:
Now for the Bears' Dip.... which is deliciously simple - so amazing.... You can serve it with sliced French bread rounds, pretzels, pita chips, but we generally use heavy duty tortilla chips.
Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese
1 can of Hormel chili - no beans
1 medium sized green pepper - chopped
2-4 green onions - chopped
Shredded Mexican blend cheese to taste
Let the cream cheese sit out on the counter until it's soft enough to spread across the bottom of a baking dish easily. Spread it evenly, making sure to reach all of the sides.
Spoon the chili-no beans onto the cream cheese and spread that evenly, as well.
Add the chopped vegetables over the top - covering it. You may want to eyeball the amount of each to ensure that you are getting a good amount of greens on there.
Some people like loads of cheese on their dips, others like a nice sprinkling. I pile that stuff on there so that there is a gooey, melty, thick layer of cheesy goodness to break through with the chips (or a spoon, if you need it).
You can now either refrigerate the dip until you need it, or pop it in the oven at 350-375F until the cheese is melted and the chili is bubbling up on the sides. Be sure to serve it on a trivet and to stick a few spoons in there - it's messy, so you might want people to put it on a plate to avoid any spillage!
Who were you rooting for; and what did you snack on during yesterday's game? Did you even manage to sit through the whole thing? What a mess!
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