One of the first recipes I ever made all by myself as a kid were pudding chocolate chip cookies. I think I found the recipe in an old family cookbook. Moist and fluffy, the basic cookie could be flavored a bit depending on the pudding mix I chose.
Last winter, I picked up a couple of seasonal pudding mixes, including Gingerbread. Unsure what else to do with it, I figured it lend itself to a great pudding cookie experiment. Thus, Chocolate-Orange Gingerbread Pudding Cookies were created.
This recipe is a riff on the typical pudding cookie formula. To add a bit more texture, I added in some instant oats. The orange zest turned out to be a great compliment to the chocolate and gingerbread flavors, as well.
I recognize that probably very few people have gingerbread pudding mixes on hand, so unless you want to wait until next December, I encourage you to use this recipe as a starting point to creating your own flavor of pudding cookie! I’m a big fan of butterscotch, but I wonder about the possibilities of pistachio or coconut cream…
Chocolate-Orange Gingerbread Pudding Cookies
- 2 cups butter, softened
- 1 (3.4 oz) package of instant pudding mix (I used gingerbread)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoon orange zest
- 1/4 cup instant oats
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Mix butter, pudding, sugars, cocoa powder, and vanilla until smooth
- Beat in eggs, allowing the batter to get a bit fluffy (the dark brown color of the batter should become lighter in color).
- Add orange zest and oats, mixing until they are incorporated.
- In another bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Once combined, add to the batter slowly.
- Add chocolate chips and walnuts.
- Drop spoonfuls of dough on a cookie sheet, about one inch apart.
- Bake about 10 minutes.
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