Too Good to Bake… Almost…

So, back in March, I bought a bottle of Irish cream. You know, so I could make a Bailey’s cheesecake chocolate Guiness cake (similar to this cake, only with cream cheese frosting and a Bailey’s cheesecake center).  I made the cake (And it was good. Very good.), but it didn’t come anywhere close to using up the bottle. So I made brownies. And when I still had Irish cream left in the bottle, I did what any rational person would do. I made cookies. 😀

Of course, once I got started, I discovered that the recipe said to chill the dough for at least two hours. Who has time for that? Not me. (At least, not on a work night. After all, I didn’t get the butter in the mixing bowl until after 7pm.) Really though, how important could that step be?

Umm… fairly important when you have a sticky dough, I discovered. Still, two hours is a long time… especially when you want cookies. So I improvised. 20 minutes in the freezer is just as good as 2 hours in the fridge, right?

Close enough. Especially when you discover that frozen Irish cream cookie dough is even better than baked cookies. (Seriously amazing. I mean… chocolate, Irish cream and white chocolate chips. What’s not to love?) We did bake some, and they disappeared in no time. And since the bottle of Irish cream still isn’t empty, I just might make some more cookies. Or maybe I’ll just make the dough… and then put it in some ice cream… 😀

 

 

Irish Cream Chocolate Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, softened
1 1/2 cups of sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups AP flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1/2 cup Irish cream
1 cup white chocolate chips

Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder together in a medium-sized bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well combined. Gradually add the Irish cream to the butter-sugar-egg-vanilla mixture, scrapping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. When the Irish cream is all mixed in to the batter, add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough for two hours in the refrigerator. (I used my cookie scoop to portion out the dough into one-inch sized balls and placed them on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet. I then chilled the cookie sheet with the dough for about 20 minutes in the freezer. This seemed to work relatively well, especially with my reduced timetable.) 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and when you’re ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on wire racks. Store in an airtight container.

From Gimme Some Oven, who adapted it from How Sweet Eats 

Click here for a printable version.