Sometimes when I am browsing recipes online I see one that just shouts out “MAKE ME NOW!”. And this is one of them. One look at the photo had me drooling and it has occupied my thoughts for a couple of weeks now. Brookies – a brownie base with a cookie topping. The best of both worlds!
So this morning I had the choice of cleaning the downstairs bathroom (the one my boys use), or baking. It was not a hard decision to make. Any decision between housework and something else will usually not go in favour of housework. Unless the alternative is an assignment for university … then all of a sudden the housework becomes really important!
A quick check of the pantry (and the new hiding place where I have to stash chocolate chips so they don’t get eaten by chocolate chip monsters – aka teenage boys) revealed I had all the ingredients. My freshly cleaned oven was also begging to be used, so out came the mixer.
I found the original recipe on Tasty Kitchen but you can also see it on the contributors own blog, Shugary Sweets. The only change I made to the recipe was to use real butter instead of shortening. It’s not so common to use shortening here in New Zealand. We make the best butter in the world so why compromise? Apart from that the recipe is unchanged.
So here we go!
Brownie Layer Ingredients
1-½ cup Sugar
¾ cups Flour
¾ cups Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
3 whole Eggs
¾ cups Melted Butter
1 cup Chocolate Chips.Morsels
For the Cookie Layer
¾ cups Butter
1-¼ cup Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
2 Tablespoons Milk
1 whole Egg
1-¾ cup Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
¾ teaspoons Baking Soda
½ teaspoons Cinnamon
1-½ cup Chocolate Chips/Morsels
Preheat oven to 375F or 180C.
Line a 13 x 9 inch baking pan with baking paper. Use baking paper – not greaseproof – there is a difference!
Mix all the brownie layer ingredients until just combined and spread over the base of the lined pan.
Place softened butter and brown sugar in the mixer and beat until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla, egg and milk.
Mix in the combined dry ingredients and finally the chocolate chips. Drop spoonfuls over the brownie base and smooth over.
It should then look something like this.
©Kate Watson 2011
Bake for 25-30 minutes while you lick the beaters your children lick the spoons and beaters and you put a load of washing on. Or not…
Now the original recipe said to leave this to cool completely, but seriously folks, that ain’t ever gonna happen in my house! I have known entire (double) batches of cookies to disappear before they are fully cooled down. That is one of the pitfalls of having teenage boys. Their legs are hollow and take a lot of filling. On the upside though … hmmm I am struggling to think of an upside to teenage boys …
Anyway. Back to the brookies. This is what they look like when they come out of the oven…
©Kate Watson 2011
And this is what they look like cut up on a plate…
©Kate Watson 2011
And finally, this is what the plate looked like 10 seconds after the previous photo was taken…
©Kate Watson 2011
Kids… who’d have ’em?
Seriously though, this recipe lived up to expectation. It was very quick, very easy and most importantly,very tasty! Try it yourself this weekend and let me know what you think in the comments.
