Chocolate chip cookie dough brownies? Um... YES!

This was a recipe that I was very excited to try.  I made it all about like the original recipe said, except that I used cocoa and oil for the unsweetened chocolate in the brownie part (since I had no baking chocolate on hand) and I used regular chocolate chips since I had no mini chocolate chips.  I also reduced the butter a little bit. (Seriously, it calls for almost 2 cups of butter!)  Despite the modifications, these were VERY good.  I loved that the cookie dough part had no eggs in it and still tasted like cookie dough!  I had to control myself, though, because if I ate more than 2 of these at once, I felt it!  They are VERY heavy, but oh so yummy.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

Yield: 32 brownies

Prep Time: 40 minutes | Bake Time: 25 minutes

For the Brownie:
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped (or 3/4 cup cocoa & 1/4 cup oil)
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

For the Cookie Dough:
¾ cup unsalted butter
¾ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups mini chocolate chips (regular chocolate chips work too)

1. Prepare the Brownies: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9×13-inch pan with foil, with enough to hang over all four sides. Butter or grease the foil. In a medium glass bowl, melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each, until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool slightly. In a large mixing bowl, mix the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract, scraping the bowl as needed. Mix in the melted chocolate until combined. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour and mix just until combined (don’t over-mix). Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 25 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely.

2. Prepare the Cookie Dough: In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to combine the butter and both sugars. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until combined. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the flour just until combined. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips.

3. Spread the cookie dough over the cooled brownies. Refrigerate until the dough is firm, about an hour. Use a sharp knife or a pizza cutter (my favorite way to slice brownies!) to cut the brownies. Store the brownies in an airtight container at cool room temperature or in the refrigerator.

Recipe adapted from recipegirl.com

About us & Dessert Recipe #1

Welcome to our new blog!

Here's a little bit about us.  We are Jake and Steph.  We are married.  We have 2 kids and a dog and a house, but no white picket fence, so we feel completely cheated on that whole "American dream" idea.  Sarcasm is big in our house, if you can't tell.  Oh, and we REALLY like food.  Jake likes the salty and fatty stuff more (chips, popcorn, meats, creamy soups) while Steph has a mouth full of sweet teeth.

Through the years we've been together, we've learned to balance our food preferences by letting Jake eat all the chips and letting Steph eat all the desserts.  However, we do eat a little more in moderation to try to be healthier for our kids and our blood pressure/cholesterol/blood sugar/kidneys/stomachs/insert other health problem here.  So the purpose of this blog is to share it all-- the good and the bad recipes, restaurants, products, and general dining experiences with kids.  There are a lot of really great restaurants and a lot of amazing recipes out there, but how many actually appeal to both adults AND picky snot nosed kids like ours?  (Again, remember that we like to be extremely sarcastic.  We love our kids.  We tell ourselves this over and over and over every day.)

Steph likes to get recipes from two of her favorite websites: allrecipes.com & pinterest.  Usually she just sees the recipe and then decides how to best modify it to make it healthier or less expensive or just plain less ridiculous.  After all, who wants to have to go to the store and purchase specialized ingredients to make a dessert absolutely perfect when all you want is a good sugar fix?  Obviously, all the attempts do not work out well.  Still, Jake grins and swallows down all of it, the bad and the good, to appease his wife in all her attempts.

Tonight we will start with our dessert for the evening.  Ironically, I (Steph) found this recipe first on Pinterest, but it is from allrecipes.com.  The recipe is for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes.  I was looking through a few recipes on Pinterest and told my family a few of them for our dessert tonight.  The kids heard "cupcakes" and "cookie" and "dough" and "chocolate chip" (not in that order, obviously) and had to have this dessert.  So we tried it.

I made the cupcakes just like the recipe said, except with a little less sugar. (I do that a lot.  Yes, I do have a sweet tooth, but in my opinion, there is still WAY too much sugar called for in most recipes.)  Then I froze the cookie dough in 24 small balls on a pan in the freezer.  Instead of a box yellow cake mix, I made the cake batter from scratch.  And yes, again, I modified it to make it a little healthier.  I used some applesauce and less sugar and (my husband almost killed me for this) a little wheat flour.  I did everything else just like the recipe said.

Except...

I cooked my dinner in the oven at the same time and accidentally overbaked some of them.  Overbaking with these cupcakes is a no-no because if the cookie dough bakes too much, it's like having a dry, crumbly cookie inside a cupcake.

LUCKILY... I had to put a few of the cupcakes on a lower rack and they cooked a little slower, so they came out the right consistency.

My son liked the cupcakes.  My daughter only tried one bite and then gave the rest of hers away.  Jake said they were okay.  I thought they were... okay.  The ones that cooked on the lower rack were better.  Still, I think next time (if there is one) I will try the boxed mix to make the cupcakes a little fluffier, or maybe the mix from scratch with the full fat and no wheat flour.  My husband was right.  Still, it was a fun recipe to try!