Cookies and Cream Cookies

Last Friday it was my friend's birthday so I decided to bake her some cookies and bring them with me to school. I set out on Thursday evening to bake these cookies and cream cookies which my brother had been asking me to make for quite some time. The cookies are kind of like chocolate chip cookies, except instead of using chocolate chips there are Oreo bits mixed in. Since we don't normally have Oreo cookies at my house I made the special effort to go to the store and buy some, pleasantly surprised to find they were on sale.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished, or at least in my case without some hiccups. As I was preparing the cookies I happened to be on hold with our cable TV provider due to some problems we were having with our receiver. I left the phone on speaker and carried on about my business, occasionally pausing to listen closely and see if the "on hold music" had stopped without my noticing. I had already been on hold for an hour and a half by the time I put the cookies in the oven. As with most cookies, these ones do not take a long time to bake and I had to rotate the trays halfway through. And that's when it happened...I opened the oven door only to have the handle fall off on one side. At the same time I could tell that I had finally been taken off hold as the phone started eliciting a person's voice saying "Hello, hello?". Frantically I started to yell at the phone while still holding the oven door, trying to make sure that the customer service agent didn't hang up on me and that the oven handle didn't fall off entirely. Acting fast I yelled at my brother to fetch my mom so that she could take over with the oven and I could attend to the phone.

In the end, my mother fixed the oven door and I managed to schedule and appointment for a service technician to come next week and check out our receiver. Somehow, despite the craziness, I still managed to bake the cookies and didn't have to start the process over with a new batch. I'm not going to lie...the cookies weren't the best I've ever made. The taste of the Oreos was quite prominent but other than that they were just regular cookies. However the conditions under which they were prepared were quite amusing and entertaining. I think that a year ago, maybe even a few months ago, I would have found the situation completely frustrating but now I can recognize how hilarious the situation was and just smile and laugh as I recount the story.

Cookies and Cream Cookies
Makes about 30 cookies.

• 1/2 cup (8 tbsp) butter, room temperature
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 12 Oreos, broken into small pieces

1. Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy using a mixer on medium speed.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla and mix until incorporated.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet until just combined.
5. Gently fold in the Oreo pieces. Shape the dough into small balls, about 1-2" in diameter and place on a ungreased baking tray spaced 1-2" apart.
6. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-10 minutes until the edges just start to brown. If using multiple baking trays, rotate halfway through to ensure even baking. Let cool for a couple of minutes on the tray before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.