{Lightened-Up!} Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fro-Yo

Dear Cookie Dough,

I just can’t quit you.

In the “olden days”, you were taboo. It was risky–dangerous, even.  People risked their lives for you. They figured nothing else in the world mattered in that moment, face-to-face with your sweet, delicate dough… and they threw caution to the wind and risked tummy aches and salmonella for you.

Now you’ve grown up. You’re more sophisticated. You’re less dangerous in the sense that salmonella risk is decreased; however, your tastiness factor has increased exponentially, and for that, you’re possibly more dangerous than you were before.

*sigh* You’re just too amazing.

A few days ago, I had an awful day at work. Obnoxious customers kept us busy from the minute I walked in until long after we closed. I was tired, I was hungry, and I was cranky–a deadly trio of emotions only a big, fat bowl of you could ail. And ail you did–and then some.

Dare I say you’re more amazing than your perpetually baked cousin, the cookie.

Yet I began wondering ways to somehow improve you. I know people say you can’t change someone and by no means do I want you to think you’re imperfect (quite the contrary). But you’re a model: you’re versatile, a blank canvas, if you will, and I had other ideas to hang out with you besides using a rubber spatula as a vehicle to get you in my mouth (how did this turn dirty?)

Something besides stuffing you into cupcakes or pies or cinnamon rolls. Something different, like making you into a frozen treat. Except not like the usual cookie dough ice cream which is 99% vanilla ice cream, 1% measly cookie dough specks.

I wanted you to be put to your full potential… full-throttle cookie dough action, if you will. Something unrelentingly brown sugary, some in-yo-face cookie goodliness. Something like Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fro-Yo. Um, yeah, I think that is what the doctor ordered.

When I saw this recipe over at Two Peas and Their Pod, I knew I had to make it. I pinned it immediately and kept it in my mind knowing that I, too, could make you into this level of greatness.

And in my kitchen, you were transformed. Creamy, rich, sweet and surprisingly, light. By using fat-free vanilla yogurt + my favorite low-calorie chocolate chip cookie recipe, I made you into a serious force to be reckoned with. One I enjoyed in a cone, in a bowl, and with a spoon, straight from the tub numerous times over the weekend.

Cookie dough, I love you.

Love, Hayley

{Lightened-Up!} Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fro-Yo *inspired by Two Peas and Their Pod’s recipe & my Low-Calorie Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe 

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup miniature chocolate chips
1 cup fat-free vanilla yogurt (I used Oikos vanilla Greek yogurt)

1. In a freezer-safe bowl with a tight-fitting lid, combine the butter and sugars with a rubber spatula and stir until creamy. Stir in the vanilla and the milk. Lastly, gently stir in the flour and salt to combine. Dough will be soft. Stir in the chocolate chips.
2. Fold the vanilla yogurt into the cookie dough until fully incorporated. Cover with the lid and freeze overnight.
3. Store the fro-yo, tightly covered, in the freezer. This makes about 2-3 cups of fro-yo.

The texture of this fro-yo is creamy and sturdy.. almost like ice cream rather than the soft-serve kind typically found at yogurt shops. It holds well in a cone and tastes delicious no matter how you serve it–I honestly prefer mine straight from the tub!

And for those of you who dislike cookie dough ice cream for the lack of cookie dough (uh, me), then this is for you. There’s no vanilla in the way–all cookie dough here! Plus, it’s lightened-up so you can justify eating a tub and it’s practically considered health-food.

I hope you enjoy!! Please make this, it’s seriously amazing.

xo, Hayley

Tagged: chocolate, cookies, ice cream