With Memorial Day coming, everyone’s making barbecue and picnic plans. Well, everyone except me. I tend to forget all about it until the last second or just shrug it off, figuring that if worse comes to worst, I’ll just throw some meat on a fire and be done with it.

But for you lovely people who plan ahead, think about this delightful no-bake dessert for your get-together time. These bars are made of egg-free Oreo cookie dough and topped with thick white chocolate fudge.

This time of year, I really need the extra sugar hit. Our students are in standardized testing for weeks on end, and the resultant disrupted scheduling can be challenging when you’re in the same classroom with the same kids for several hours on end. I get so hungry, too. And I need to use the bathroom.

One of the golden perks of summer is that I can use the bathroom whenever I need to. 10 months out of the year, I hold it in. After all, a teacher can’t leave her students unattended. But for those two months, the bathroom is actually a possibility. Sometimes I go there just because I can, not because I need to.

TMI? Yeah, well, try being a teacher. We’re not allowed to pee. We’re also not allowed to be considered experts in our own field. They hire people to make policies that make very little sense instead, people who have never taught a day in their lives. Good system, y’all.

Here’s an analogy for you: how about if we send a bunch of people who have eaten food into all of the restaurants in America so they can make policy decisions about how those restaurants should be run? I’m predicting a lot of grease fires, some small floods, and some very sub-par pastries.

The moral of the story: just because you’ve gone to school? Yeah, means nothing. You have no idea how a school runs or, even better, how it should. That might sound harsh, but the truth hurts.

I’ll soften the blow a little bit with these Oreo fudge cookie dough bars. The bottom layer is a thick cookie dough filled with cookies and cream flair, and a simple stovetop fudge (no candy thermometer needed!) rounds out the perfect topping.

I can’t teach everyone how to fix the education system, but I can give them nice treats to make things seem better. That’s not a bad way to start a week!

Everyone tries to get all healthy in the new year, but they don’t see Valentine’s Day coming. No siree, not by a mile. So imagine how health plans do when faced by giant heart-shaped boxes of candy!

This recipe lets you have your romantic dessert and still exercise portion control. These little cheesecakes are full of cookies and cream goodness, but they won’t do horrible things to your healthy resolves. Winning!

So I’m just wondering here: any of you really big into staying busy? Like, always? Like, you do it to yourselves and deep down you’re not really sorry about it?

People always ask me if I have any spare time, and they do it in this totally pitying way. And while I get what they’re saying on one level, I’m secretly wondering what I would do if I had spare time. Watch lots of Netflix? Absolutely. Nap? You bet! Catch up on my reading? Maybe.

As tempting as all of that sounds, it’s so much better to have free time in scarcity. That way you appreciate it so much more. Besides, what would you rather do in the long term: Netflix binge or learn to play the guitar?

A couple of years ago, I took up guitar. It’s been really fun, even if I’m not that great and I suspect my teacher would dump me in a heartbeat if I wasn’t a good paying customer. Many nights, I practice when I’d rather be watching TV. But hey, now I have a new skill!

Same with blogging. It started as a little hobby, and it’s growing slowly into a part-time job. And yeah, I’d have a ton more time and probably less overall cussing in the kitchen if I didn’t do this, but I’m learning how to take pictures and make videos and work with sponsors. It’s a  real gift, one that taking naps wouldn’t compare to.

There’s more, too. I like to take on challenges at work and do classes on the side, and spend time with friends, and (of course) raise my children. When all’s said and done, spare time is just an occasional treat. But if we had treats all the time, they wouldn’t be any fun.

Well, maybe these skinny mini cookies and cream cheesecakes would always be welcome. I’ve been eating one a day all week and they haven’t stopped being wonderful.

These are very easy to whip up, and they employ the lower-fat version of typical cheesecake ingredients. My favorite part is getting to that reduced-fat Oreo at the bottom. Heaven!

Being busy isn’t good all the time, but it’s better than the alternative, which is boredom and pointlessness. So if someone accuses you of having too much going on, be proud! Own your industry. It’s part of the American Dream, after all!

As a whole, people like chocolate more than fruit. They especially like peanut butter with chocolate more than fruit, and I agree on that point a bazillion percent. While opinions differ in regards to many cookies, most people can’t resist a really good chocolate chip cookie.

And even fewer people will turn their noses up at anything with cookies and cream. In fact, whenever I make anything that involves Oreos, I have to hide in a corner while a stampede (comprised in part by people I don’t know that well, if at all) grabs at what I’ve done and totally eliminates its existence.

Well, I’d better hide. This cookie cake is extreme. Not only is the base itself filled with Oreos in every corner of every bite, but it’s also topped with more Oreos, Hershey’s cookies and cream kisses, and Hershey’s cookies and cream drops. Oh, and there’s frosting, too.

While we’re on the subject of cookie cakes, I should probably emphasize how much I love them. They’re a lot more exciting than cakes, they’re tricked out just like cake, and they’re a lot easier to make than cookies. There’s no dough chilling involved, no forming of dough mounds. You just press the dough into the pan, bake, and decorate!

For the frosting, I made the vanilla buttercream from Lindsay’s recipe. If you don’t read Lindsay’s blog, go there immediately. She is one of the most talented cake bakers ever. I love her buttercream because it holds up beautifully and it’s not as oily as the frostings you get from bakeries that use shortening exclusively. This is a butter-shortening hybrid.

From there, just pile on all of the candy and cookies and you’ve got yourself a cake nobody will forget! Don’t hold back. Let the cookies and cream madness out!

Mom: How are you?

Me: Great! I’m making ganache.

Mom: Why?

Me: For a pie.

Mom: Oh. What’s the pie for?

Me: I’m a baking blogger. I bake stuff.

Mom: Right.

It’s a pretty frequent conversation that we have. My mom, a talented and fantastically strong woman, is not a baker. She sees it as a practical necessity at times, but otherwise, she never just bakes because it’s fun, whereas I bake all the time because I love thinking of dessert ideas and seeing where they go. That’s usually the primary reason I hop into the kitchen to create things.

You’d think that would translate to an overstocked freezer of baked goods or a mountain of Tupperware containers on my countertops, all containing baked goods, but not so much. The stuff I bake goes fast. These cookies disappeared with lightning speed.

I can’t blame them, poor things. They didn’t stand a chance. Who could resist a perfectly soft, chewy cookie packed with crushed Oreos? I wasn’t able to. My father, who was stopping by, certainly couldn’t say no. And my daughters tore them apart. Only my son, the supposed chocolate hater, stayed above it all.

When I first started baking cookies oh so long ago, they didn’t look pretty at all. They were flat. Very flat. Part of the solution to that baker’s problem is to chill the dough, always. But I also learned along the way that if you want cookies with a soft center, they should be stacked like tall mounds when baking, not rolled into balls. The mound will melt down as the cookie bakes and make for a nice thick cookie.

The dough for this requires no mixer (you use melted butter and mix it all by hand), and you don’t even need a food processor. I put 12 Oreos into a Ziploc bag, sealed it, and crushed them roughly with a rolling pin. That gives your cookies a lot more texture and color variation, which is ideal for cookies and cream.

I don’t know how long I’ll be blogging before my mom stops asking me why I baked something. But I know she’ll stop asking sooner or later. We’re different, but just like I understand that her happy time involves playing the piano for an hour a day, she gets that mine involves melting chocolate. And if I get to hear her play and she eats my cookies, then that’s what I call a beautiful friendship.

I’ve tried to fight it. I even went two months sugar-free last year to see what would happen. Nothing happened. I didn’t have cravings as madly as I’d supposed, but I also never lost the desire to eat chocolate. So there you have it.

And I’ve begun to see sugar as something that can be pushed to the maximum, which is why these brownies exist. If you’re one of those people who doesn’t like your dessert to be sweet, walk away now. But if the mere idea of cookies and cream gets your heart racing, these brownies are for you!

They’re thick. They’re fudgy and definitely NOT cakey. Each brownie has a full Oreo inside. And the whole kit n’ kaboodle is covered with thick cookies and cream buttercream frosting. It’s. So. Good!

Usually, my husband is good about ignoring my desserts. He doesn’t eat much gluten, so he has his own treat stash. But these were calling to him. I had to keep swatting him away. And when he did grab a bite, I had to almost wrestle him to the ground to stop him from eating the whole brownie. The things we do for love. Hey, he got a forkful in!

And then I got to finish his brownie! It was super nice.

And then I needed to get them out of the house, so to girls’ night they went! My buddies were more than happy to polish off the batch amid lots of x-rated moaning. I was happy!

These are definitely special. So get cracking!

Brownies:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup flour
• 16 regular Oreos, left whole

Frosting:

• 4 tablespoons butter, softened to room temperature
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2-4 tablespoons heavy cream
• 8 Oreos, crushed

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350. Coat an 8 x 8 pan with cooking spray.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the cocoa into the melted butter until it dissolves. Add the sugar and stir again. When the sugar is incorporated, mix in the vanilla and eggs. Add the flour, mixing until just combined.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Take the Oreos and make 4 rows of 4, pressing each cookie lightly into the batter. Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not overbake, or the brownies will be dry. Set the pan aside to cool.

While the brownies are cooling, make the frosting. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the powdered sugar until it’s fully mixed in. Add the heavy cream slowly until the mixture’s consistency becomes spreadable.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and gently stir in the crushed Oreos until the frosting and the cookies are fully combined. Spread the frosting over the cooled brownies.

Cut the brownies into 16 squares and serve! Brownies can also be covered and kept for up to one week.

Anyway, this past week, I messed up. An intern’s birthday somehow slipped through my fingers. I promised to make it up to him and he told me that the easiest way to make him happy was to incorporate Oreos into whatever I was baking.

I’ve noticed something about Oreos: they have the same fanatic fan base that my beloved peanut butter cups do. And like any loyal fan, Oreo devotees accept no generic substitutes. It has to be Oreo or bust. I understand completely. I accept no peanut butter cup that’s not a Reese’s.

But I digress. It was a busy weekend. My nephew had his second birthday, my son’s birthday is coming up this week, and we had endless social engagements. No, we’re not popular. Weekends just have a way of filling up.

When I’m short on time, I make bark. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s so addictive. I could sit on my couch watching Parenthood episodes and eating bark for hours on end. It’s an open canvas. You can pretty much make any bark your heart tells you to make.

So this was a no-brainer. I went to the store, bought a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, a bag of white chocolate chips, and a package of Oreos. Those three ingredients and five minutes were all I needed.

The end result is highly satisfying. The bark is all pretty with swirls of chocolate and crumblings of tantalizing Oreo. It literally melts in your mouth, but still has a satisfying crunch from the cookie. And if people eat it all up in two seconds flat, then you can make another batch in no time at all!

Plus, this makes a great gift. It’s like fudge. People think it took you forever to make and that you’re the best person ever, but it’s so simple that you just smile at them benignly and keep saying, “It was no trouble at all.” They’ll think you’re gracious and brilliant, but you’ll actually be telling the truth.

Okay, enough wasting time. Do you have five minutes? Go make some bark!

Ingredients:

• 1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 11 oz.)
• 1 bag white chocolate chips (same size)
• 1/2 package Oreos

Instructions:

Using two microwave-safe bowls, melt the chocolates. Start with the semi-sweet. Heat for two minutes and stir, and then heat in 30-second intervals until melted and smooth, stirring after each interval. Do not overheat or the chocolate will burn. Note: the white chocolate melts faster, so be careful!

Line a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Spread the semi-sweet chocolate evenly over the pan, being sure that no area is significantly thinner or thicker than another.

Pour the white chocolate over the semi-sweet layer and carefully spread it out, creating light swirls as you go. Do not over-swirl the chocolate or you will lose the effect and just wind up with a color that looks like milk chocolate.

Using your hands, crumble the Oreos over the melted chocolate, creating pieces of varying sizes. Be sure to cover the whole area.

Put the bark in the refrigerator and chill until firm, anywhere from 30-45 minutes. You can leave it in longer if needed.

When you’re ready, break the bark into pieces with your hands. It will peel very easily off the parchment paper. Put the bark into an airtight container and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve. If you have the willpower to wait, that is!