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Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Best of Both Worlds

Two of my favorite sweets are chocolate chip cookies and brownies. Well, imagine the raptures of bliss that waved over me when I stumbled upon a recipe over at eggs on sunday that combines them both into one delicious-looking double decker bar. Heaven.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie Bars

While it has occurred to me before to combine a chocolate chip cookie bar with a brownie, I've never gotten around to trying it out, but the food porn photos on Amy's blog were just the push I needed. Drool.

The recipe is pretty straight forward - you start off with the brownie layer and spread that out into the pan. Next you mix up the chocolate chip cookie dough and gently spread that on top. I found that a little difficult to do because the cookie dough is a bit stiffer than the brownie dough, but I managed.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie Bars
I actually baked these back in July so it's hard for me to remember all the details. That will teach me to get so behind on my blogging! These were quite good but I do remember being struck by a couple of things. In my opinion, the cookie layer - being the stiffer dough - should go in the pan first - it would make for easier spreading. However, as the cookie layer is thinner, for this recipe it makes more sense to put it on top. Which leads me to my next point. As much as I love chocolate, I found myself wanting to taste more of the cookie layer. The subtle but lovely butterscotchy flavors of the cookie dough were overshadowed by the intense chocolate flavor from the brownie. Not necessarily a bad thing, but then you probably might as well just make a plain old brownie. To fix this "problem", I would make the cookie dough thicker and make it the bottom layer, topping it off with a thinner brownie layer.

So, it sounds like I have some research to do! Sometime this winter I'll try out my own twist on this recipe and get back to you. I'm sure the family will absolutely HATE having to sample my experiments, but we all do what we have to do.

10 comments:

  1. I was tempted by that recipe myself. My only problem is I like cc cookies a good deal better than brownies (which I love on occasion, don't get me wrong), so I wasn't sure if I would just end up eating the tops! Yours photos are pretty tempting, though....

    Oh, and, purple and Thai basil almost smell cinnamon-y, they are quite spicy but not hot. You should try planting one plant one summer just for the heck of it--although they are all interchange-able, they are quite different. I usually plant all kinds but since I only did pots as I hopped from house to house, I decided against loads of different kinds.

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  2. Laura - I'll let you know if I come up with a good one for us CCC lovers. :) We just started a new lasagna bed, so I might have room to plant more basil next year. :)

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  3. Hi! Great blog! I made these a month or so ago and completely agree on the problems with spreading the cookie layer. I love your ideas of making the cookie layer thicker and on the bottom. If you end up doing that I hope you post it!

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  4. Oh, wow. This really does bring two delicious things together in a new way.

    Will watch to see if you get the chance to try the layers reversed!

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  5. Colleen and Lo - I will be trying it soon but right now it's great gardening weather so it's hard to stay inside an bake. ;)

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  6. These look really delicious, even better than a regular brownie!

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  7. Your idea sounds good... or just plop spoonfuls on top of the brownie layer instead of trying to spread it.

    These look DELICIOUS!!!

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  8. Those two are my absolute favorites... cookies, and brownies... yum!

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  9. hi
    They look so yummy
    wish i could be there

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  10. I made this recipe last night! They are absolutely delicious!!!!

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