Friends, Be A Good Cookie Week has been full of such fun surprises! I am in awe of how wonderfully well that you have embraced our efforts to raise awareness of Cookies For Kids’ Cancer. You are all Good Cookies in my book!
For those of you that play along with me on Twitter, you may, from time to time see a little banter between my brother Chris (@MrStonebender) and I. He’s a creative type that isn’t afraid to experiment in the kitchen. We text various ideas back in forth on a daily basis. Sometimes we disagree. I’d be lying if I told you that those disagreements via texts didn’t often spiral down to sibling immaturities along the lines of You couldn’t be more wrong. or Dad likes me best. or I’m smarter than you. It happens. What is it about siblings that eventually brings you both to the maturity level of an eight year old?
Anyhoo, the other day, Chris sent a text asking what I thought of his joining in the Be A Good Cookie Week shenanigans. He followed it up with I kind of already wrote the post for your blog. Nice, Bro. 🙂 I guess that’s what happens when he’s procrastinating the writing of a play with a looming deadline. Of course, I’m thrilled to have him play along with us!
Bonus Be A Good Cookie Week fun! Woo-hoo!
So the following is my brother’s (a.k.a. Mr. Stonebender) post, with a little light editing from his sister.
Other notes: the Be A Good Cookie Giveaway has ended. Thanks to all who entered! A winner will be announced tomorrow.
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So, hey. Um, I guess it’s been cookie week over here? Like for cancer awareness? Well good. Cancer sucks. And it’s way f&*%ing worse in kids. (Gonna let that one slide since we’re talking cancer, here.) So I can dig it. I’m less of an activist than all you awesome folks, but I see my [ahem]older[ahem] (He may be bigger than I, but I am still sister enough to give him a big wedgie.) sister participating in all this woah-hey-awesome and I think, y’know, I’ve baked cookies before. And I think, y’know, I don’t really do “recipes” if I can avoid it. And I think, verbal-crutch, that even though I’m not following teacher’s directions, and even though I’ve got a play to finish that sorta ruins my chances of actually baking anything, I could still shoot over a li’l solidarity crosspost, and use seven commas in a single, y’know, sentence.
See, it’s what younger brothers are for. That is to say, HEY ME TOO, ME TOO, PLEASE CAN I PLAY TOO, DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!
These are called AwesomeBombs. You are about to die. (In a good way, of course.)
These are a concept-child born after the advent of another extra-super-awesome-yet-currently-mysterious cookie-like thing which, fret not, you ComfortablyDomestic readers should be hearing about within weeks. (We’ve been refining the method.) The original idea, and the current Nutella-infused mutation, were developed with the genius of the incredible Samantha M, (froomla.blogspot.com) who is a novelist studying furniture design at Kendall University in Grand Rapids, MI, and the driving force behind anything I ever make that includes Nutella from this moment forward. (I’d never really worked with it before. It’s pretty amazing.)
Step 1: Go save me the trouble of plagiarizing my sister and pull up the fudge-brownie and chocolate chip cookie posts* from the archives of this very food blog.
Here, I’ll help a little.
For Brownies:
1 C. (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 C. packed brown sugar
12 oz. (2 C.) dark chocolate chips
1/3 C. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
For Cookies
2 ¼ C. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¾ C. granulated sugar
¾ C. packed brown sugar
1C. unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled.
1 large whole egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 C. semi-sweet chocolate chips (12 oz. bag)*
*This is lie! You will use 1 C. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and 1 C. Peanut Butter Chips
And For The Love Of (…he got a little excited here. The Sisterly-Censor intervened.)
1 Small Jar of Nutella (13oz)
Additional Instruments of Your Demise Include:
2 Half-Size Bun Pans (half sheet pans, for the rest of us non-food-industry folk)
Parchment Paper
Spatula
*Yeah, okay. Fine. I hear you; but it doesn’t count as ‘using a recipe’ in this case because I’m not using them as recipes-in-whole but rather as instructions-in-part, so it’s more like me saying “go chop figs**,” which isn’t a recipe at all; and also because I’m one of those Creative Types, right? So who can explain me?! I’m such a way-free-spirit. Whatever. Moving on.
**This is a joke. Do not chop figs.
Step 2: Make the Cookie Dough. FIRST. Do it first. It is important to the process.
But here’s the thing, okay? Are you ready?
You add Peanut Butter Chips. Yes. Yes you do. You replace half the chocolate chips with Peanut Butter Chips. Breathe.
While the dough is warm and not unlike putty in your hands [that is an example of cliché] you will roll it out on a suitably prepared surface with a suitably prepared rolling pin to a suitable thickness of about 1/4″ [that’s ~6.5mm for you base-ten people.] in doing this you will slowly coax the dough into a shape approximating one of these:
Step 3: Make the Brownie Batter.
Um. Yeah. So, do that.
Spread it to fill the other bun-pan-that-you’ve-already-lined-with-parchment-paper. It’ll be about 1/4″ deep, just like the cookie.
Bake it. It won’t take quite as long as the original not-a-recipe-at-all (*ahem* whatever.) states, so just keep an eye on it. Do the toothpick trick. Trust your instincts. It’ll be fine. (Start checking between 12 to 15 minutes.)
Step 4: Brownie is done? It’s cookie time.
Easy. Crank the oven to 375 per the cookie not-recipe-at-all (*ahem* see note above about my far-superior-to-my-brother’s-thought-to-be genius.) and bake it as well. While this is happening, you just chill. You just be patient. The brownie’s gotta cool, cookie’s gotta bake, so you gotta chill. out.
Step 5: Heaven.
You nuke the Nutella. Low heat. Like, 25 seconds. Enough to soften it up so it’ll pour right out.
You flip the cookie over, and you empty your li’l can of Nutella onto it, and you spread it to cover the whole thing.
Then, oh yes, you flip the brownie over on top of the cookie. There’s, ah, really no trick to this. Just aim carefully, be quick, and go for it. If you miss, or if the brownie goes all over the place, doesn’t stay in one piece, or whatever, just smoosh it all together by hand in the aftermath. It’s fudgy, so it’ll stick well enough for rock’n’roll.
And, so, yeah. Now you’re pretty much done. Cut ’em into squares. Put ’em in a box. Clean up your giant mess.
Step 6: Enjoy the boomsplosion.
This gets you somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 cookies by the time you’re done. And they won’t last more than four days, guaranteed. Buy bigger pants and stop feeling sorry for yourself, it was so worth it.
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