Show your love with red velvet chocolate chip cream cheese cookies

Red is the timeless colour for fiery passion. It is perfect for Canada Day and Valentine’s Day. I would want to include Lunar New Year as well, since red is an auspicious colour, but that’s probably stretching it!

This recipe for red velvet chocolate chip cream cheese cookies is easy. Unlike sugar cookies, there is no need to worry about how much chocolate chip cookies spread out. They’re also chewy, soft, rich, and delicious like sandwiched cheesecake, but it is not too sweet.

Ingredients

Servings: 30 cookies

Cream the following:

• 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup Demerara sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar golden yellow

Liquids:

• 1 whole egg
• 1 yolk separated
• 1 tsp LorAnn’s Red Velvet Emulsion
• 1 ½ tsp coffee, cooled
• 1.333 tbsp buttermilk (or 1 tsp vinegar in 1 tbsp + 1 tsp milk mixture)

Dry ingredients:

• 2½ cup flour
• 6 tbsp Dutch processed cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¾ cup white chocolate chips

Cheesecake Middle:

• 72 g cream cheese (1 stick of cream cheese, let rest at room temp for 5 minutes)
• ¼ cup icing sugar

Recipe:

1. Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy in bowl with an electric mixer.
2. Add egg, coffee mixture, and red velvet emulsion, and combine until smooth. (If you only have vanilla on hand, add food colouring. Taste will be slightly different.)
3. In a separate bowl, stir in flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt until just combined.
4. Gradually add the dry flour mixture in thirds. Be careful not to over-mix.
5. Use a spatula to stir in the chips.
6. Whip together cream cheese and icing sugar, using a clean whisk.
7. Use a table-spoon to drop two dozen cookie balls. Then, flatten with the back of spoon, cut with your heart, or other shape, cookie cutter. (You might need to adjust the size of the dough you drop.)
8. Then, fill about ½ tsp of the cream cheese or cheesecake filling on one heart dough. Then, use a second heart-shaped cookie dough to gently seal around the edges — like making a pierogie, if you would. Pinch and seal around the edges.
9. Bake between 8 and 9 minutes at 370 to 375°F (187 to 190.6°C), depending on your individual ovens.
10. Let the tray cool on the rack for a minute before continuing to cool each cookie on the cookie racks.

You can freeze your from-scratch cookie dough to be baked later — for up to two weeks. However, I should warn you that taste-testing the cookie dough is highly addictive.