Sweet As Pie: Brownie Batter Cookies

This recipe is a Trisha Yearwood recipe that's not in either cookbook we have.  

But I sure am glad we stumbled upon it, because it's simple and delicious.

Trisha Yearwood's Brownie Batter Cookies

Verdict: Very yummy. A simple and tasty, thick chocolate cookie dressed up by chocolate chips.

Cook it again: Absolutely.  I *almost* doubled this to start with, and I really should have. We devoured these.

Cost factor: Hard to say. We have all this on hand, usually.

First of all, one evening you need to try to dig out your stand mixer from the mess that is your kitchen counter.

If you get a hankerin' to mess with your camera settings and try to get some one-handed action shots, pouring sugar is a good one to try.  Also, sing Def Leppard while you do it. Makes it more fun.

Add some butter.  Two sticks.

And brown sugar.

What on earth kind of brown sugar is that, you ask?  That's my favorite thing in the world, "brownulated" sugar -- granulated brown sugar.  Technically, the recipe calls for dark brown sugar. But technically, we don't have any.  And technically, our regular brown sugar is presently in brick form, even with the little ceramic disk that is supposed to prevent such catastrophes. So, brownulated sugar.

Seriously, I love brownulated sugar.  It melts more slowly if you're using it in other recipes (say, for a brown-sugar sauce for carrots), which can make it a bit tricky to learn to cook with, but it's fabulous for baking.

Melt an ounce of baking chocolate.

See the mushy shape of the bar?  I might have pre-melted it by leaving it on the back of the stove while the oven was pre-heating.

I also may have completely forgotten this was baking chocolate and licked my finger after scooping an ounce out.

Don't do that.  I thought I was going to die.  Then CAM tried it and her reaction was about the same as mine -- we would have gladly guzzled motor oil if it had been on the kitchen counter.  ANYTHING to get rid of that chocolate!

Add three eggs to your mixture, and then some cocoa powder/flour/baking powder/salt.

Nothing fancy.  Also, we ran out (!!!) of this mid-recipe and Mick was the hero who ran out in an icy rain storm to get replacement cocoa.

Mix it all up to form a batter ...

And when it's clearly a cookie dough, add the vanilla and re-mix.  (Yes, the recipe says to do that. No, I don't know why.)  And finally, fold in some chocolate chips.  (I took the paddle out after I snapped this, but don't mix them with the paddle.)

WHM made some "poop" comments, but seriously, this looked divine in real life.

Into the oven.  Trisha says to use generous spoonfuls, so I took her at her word.  The cookies flatten but keep their basic base shape, so if you make this you'll want to be sure the dollops are relatively the size and shape you want. I could have flattened these down a bit, but I wanted thicker cookies.

I took this picture in a super-dark kitchen at 10 p.m. but this is not a bad view.

This was a better, more accurate view.

So, that's all well and good, but how did they taste?!

These were very good.  The melted chocolate, cocoa, and chocolate chips allow you to call these triple-chocolate cookies.  They were delicious right out of the oven -- the chips held their shape but were just gooey enough.  Overall, these are flavorful without being too rich (I think a darker chocolate may have put them in that too-rich category).  They are just on the "cakey" side of "cake" cookies, and definitely have the flavor of brownies. But make no mistake: these are cookies, not small cakes and not brownies. They don't have that moist denseness (is denseness a word?!) of brownies, but have that cake-ish consistency.  Of course, I also made big dollops, so these were pretty thick, and that may have contributed to that cake-ish-ness.  Also,  I'm not sure if I over baked them or if they are supposed to be just the tiniest bit dry.  I wouldn't say the cookies were dry -- just, like the cakey-ness, on that side of the dividing line.  Certainly it was nothing some red wine or cold milk can't fix. And Mick, my resident "those are dry" expert, didn't feel they were too dry.

Evidence of their deliciousness: I have no idea how many cookies this recipe yields, because we ate the cookies as they came out of the oven for every cookie sheet!  I'd say a reasonable estimate is 4 dozen; more if you make smaller cookies. (Ours were pretty big, and thick, which we quite loved.)

I picked this recipe and I'm glad it came out well.  This recipe comes together quickly as long as you've got butter softened.  We'll add this to our go-to list (like Chocolate-Chip cookies are) -- easy to make, ingredients always all on hand, and instantly rewarding.

--Jen

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