A week before last winter’s Eat My Blog charity bake sale, I received a package from my cousin Timmy and his girlfriend Jessica who live in San Francisco. Inside was a plastic freezer bag filled with several dozen cookies baked by the thoughtful duo. The cookies looked like regular chocolate chips at first glance, but upon further inspection I found that crushed Oreo cookies were used in place of semi-sweet morsels. A most brilliant substitution.

Timmy and Jessica were hoping to contribute to the Eat My Blog spread, but unfortunately, they mailed the goodies a week too soon due to a date mix up. Rather than sell slightly stale cookies to our crowd, I made a donation in their names and ate the entire box by myself. It was a delicious and fair trade off.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Timmy and Jessica’s genius cookie-within-a-cookie creation since I polished off the final one months ago: brainstorming how to tweak it, refine it, and make it my own. These Salted Cookies ‘n Cream Cookies are the result of far too many hours spent dreaming up ways to punctuate simple cookie dough with sandwich cookies.

While Timmy and Jessica employed Toll House’s popular recipe for their mother dough, I decided to use Jacques Torres “Perfect” Chocolate Chip Cookie batter for the base of mine. Aging the dough for 36-hours might seem like an unnecessary step, but it helps the cookies to brown more evenly and imparts intense toffee notes.

I really liked how Timmy and Jessica crammed large Oreo chunks into their cookie, so I kept that element the same. And to top it all off, each cookie was sprinkled with gray sea salt, because sweet and salty always trumps plain ‘ol sweet in my world.

After thinking and rethinking this recipe for months, I was supremely happy with the results. The cookies struck a delightful balance between sweet and salty, crunchy and creamy. It’s an instant favorite in the Astro-Gastro household.

• 8 1/2 ounces (2 cups minus 2 tablespoons) cake flour
• 8 1/2 ounces (1 2/3 cups) bread flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
• 10 ounces (1 1/4 cups) light brown sugar
• 8 ounces (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 13 ounces Oreo cookies (33 cookies)
• Sea salt

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Press plastic wrap against the dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. The dough can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator one hour prior to baking to allow it to soften some. Once the dough has come to room temperature (cooler is perfectly fine, just as long as the dough is malleable), incorporate the Oreo cookies using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.  To distribute large cookie chunks throughout the batter, mix for 5 seconds.  If you prefer smaller chunks, mix for 10 to 15 seconds.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat.

Using a kitchen scale, scoop 6 3.5-ounce mounds of dough onto the baking sheet. Make sure to turn horizontally any Oreo cookie pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes.

Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough. The dough might look a bit raw coming out of the oven, but no worries, once it cools everything firms up nicely. Dig in.

Makes 17 5-inch cookies.

Recipe adapted from Jacques Torres, Timmy Ton, and Jessica Mcnamara. [For Printable Recipe Click Here]

More cookie recipes on Gastronomy:

• America’s Test Kitchen Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Basil Cookies
• Bouchon Bakery’s Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
• Chewy Chai Meringue Cookies
• Coconut Macaroons
• Emeril Lagasse’s Snickerdoodles
• Inside-Out Carrot Cake Cookies
• Orange Spice Cookies
• Peppermint Sandwich Cookies with Candy Cane Bits (or Homemade Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s)
• The “Perfect” Chocolate Chip Cookie
• Wes’ Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies
• World Peace Cookies / Korova Cookies