Saturday, September 22, 2012

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cream Filling (or dip {or garnish [or late night decadence]})

This past Tuesday afternoon, on the flat coastal plain road of Highway 59 in Baldwin County, Alabama, the gray matter was wrapping itself around an idea for a new cake filling made from a local favorite sweet dip.  There's no tutorial here, the excitement of an idea working out having put all thoughts of documenting the procedure out of mind.  It's the combination of the chocolate chip cookie dough dip and sweetened whipped cream into a very rich (but light?) creamy recipe that's easily spread.  Chocolate chip cookie dough cream filling, to be exact.
I did away with the diet for this one:  the chocolate
chips mesmerized the will power right out of me.

Chocolate chip cookie dough dip, if you're not familiar with it, it everything lovable about chocolate chip cookie dough, minus the eggs.  It's an excellent selection for incorporating fruit arrangements and cookie bars into one, along with two or three other sweet dips.
This was a baby (boy) shower.  I'd used white chocolate chips
   in the dip for it.A double batch is almost always made to 
assure plenty arrives at the event it was intended for.

I'd thought about using it for a cake filling several times before, but it's so thick, more like a spread and less like a dip.  How could the consistency be made creamier?  WWwwwwell.  By adding cream -- whipped cream, of course.  


By rearranging the way the dip is put together, the filling was made quickly and easily.  Here's what you'll need:

One cup butter
One-half cup brown sugar
Two teaspoons vanilla
Two eight ounce cream cheeses
Two cups thick whipping cream
Two cups confectioner's sugar
One cup mini chocolate chips (or the whole bag {why not?})

Put mixer bowl and whisk attachment for whipped cream in refrigerator to get cold.

Melt butter and brown sugar together for three or four minutes on medium setting in microwave (or until the sugar is thoroughly smooth).  Let cool slightly until just warm.  Beat the cream cheese (still cool and not at room temperature) into the butter and sugar until a smooth mixture is achieved.  Add vanilla and beat again.

Put the whipping cream in cold bowl with wire whisk attachment and whip until folds begin to form in cream and soft peaks form.  Slowly add confectioner's sugar to blend and proceed to whip until stiff peaks form.

With speed at lowest setting, whisk brown sugar/butter/cream cheese to whipped sweetened cream a spoonful at a time until all is added in.  Stir once from the bottom and process only long enough to mix in the stuff from the bottom of the bowl.

Gently fold in chocolate chips, cover, and chill.

That's it!

The filling will firm up only slightly, retaining a spreading consistency after it's cooled.

It debuted in this chocolate cake with chocolate truffle butter cream icing.
The client tells me the cake and filling were
very well received.  Very well.
I like that...

This is a recipe that can be tweaked a hundred ways to become a pie filling, a lighter version of the dip, an incredible garnish for a slice of cake, a tad of rum or bourbon or Kahlua added instead of vanilla for a cool topping for a bread pudding... so many things.  Y'all make it yours (figuratively speakings) and enjoy!

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Ever time I think a climactic plateau of chocolate cake garnishing has been reached, another one appears.  Sharing with y'all the chocolate cake that went out this morning: