This recipe is going to make you so happy, I promise
Happy Friday, friends, and happy 10 days until Royal Holiday comes out, eek! If you haven't yet preordered it, you can do that with any of the links here, or do it through any of the bookstores listed on my events page, and then I can sign them for you! If you missed my newsletter on Monday, I'll be in Oakland, San Francisco, Mountain View, Portland OR, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, Winston-Salem NC, Austin TX, and Portland again, and I hope to see a bunch of you! And speaking of events, I have one next week, with an author I admire so much: Jacqueline Woodson. She'll be in San Francisco to talk about her newest book, Red At The Bone, which came out on Tuesday, and I'm thrilled (and intimidated) to get to talk to her about it, so please come see us at Booksmith on Thursday September 26th!
Okay, so it will be really and truly fall in a few days, which means it's time to settle in and bake some cookies or brownies, or, as this recipe posits, what about both? This is a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours (a truly great cookbook, and an excellent gift for any baking enthusiast in your life), and it is one of those recipes you only make for people you like a lot, because no one you like only a mediocre amount deserves these. It's a very simple idea: you make some chocolate cookie dough batter, and you make some brownie batter, and then you spread the brownie batter in a pan and put the chocolate cookie dough batter on top and bake it so your brownies have a layer of chocolate chip cookies on top and have I sold you yet? I know I have.
Dorie Greenspan's Chipster Brownies, or as I call them Cookies on top of Brownies
Brownie layer
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 sticks/8 ounces/16 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 and 2/3 cups (or 11.6 ounces) sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (or 5 ounces) flour
Cookie layer
1 1/4 cup (or 5.3 ounces) flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 sticks (or 6 ounces, or 12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup (or 4.7 ounces) packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup (or 4.6 ounces) white sugar
1 large egg and 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup or 6 ounces chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350, and grease and line with parchment paper a 9 x 13 inch pan, and butter the paper.
To make the brownie batter: melt both the chocolates and the butter in a pan over simmering water, stirring frequently until just melted. You can also do this in a microwave, but be really careful and stop to stir a lot, chocolate burns very quickly. Let chocolate cool and set aside. With a mixer, beat the sugar and eggs on medium high speed for two to three minutes, until pale. Beat in the salt and the vanilla extract, and then add the chocolate. Mix in the flour until just incorporated. Put into prepared pan, and set aside.
To make the cookie dough:
Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat the butter and both sugars until smooth, about three minutes with a stand mixer, and then add the egg and the yolk (one at a time), and then the vanilla. Mix in the flour mixture, just until the dry ingredients disappear into the dough, then the chocolate chips.
Drop the cookie dough in small, even spoonfuls on top of the brownie batter (Dorie tells you to do this and then spread it lightly over the top of the brownies, but it was far easier for me to just drop spoonfuls close together and leave it; it spreads in the oven). Bake for 50-55 minutes, until the cookie top is golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack, and cool completely in the pan. Cut in squares, and share with the good people in your life.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Jasmine
Find me elsewhere! Facebook Instagram Twitter
Buy The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and The Wedding Party and preorder Royal Holiday!