Trick or TREAT?

Of course you picked "treat"! Who wouldn't? Especially if these amazing (addictive) brownies brookies are the reward. That's right, "brookie".  Brownie + Cookie = Brookie.

Now when you can't decide if you're craving a brownie or a cookie, you don't have to! This is exactly what happened on a rare lazy, rainy, family-movie-marathon-Sunday in our household. We were all craving some kind of home-baked, decadent treat, but couldn't agree upon a recipe. My family was lobbying for brownies, but I had cookies on the brain. We compromised with this. Best of both worlds. And it was perfect, because these are so easy. No need to take tray after tray of cookies out of the oven.

I found a recipe from "Pinch of Yum" that offered excellent details for chocolate chip cookie brownies. The author had clearly done her "brookie" research, and her post was very helpful to the success of this recipe. After reading all of the instructions and insights, I altered the recipe to fit my craving.

On the day that I made these, I was craving candy corn and dry roasted peanuts. Around these parts, at this time of year, one can often find a delectable mix of peanuts and candy corn set out at parties and tailgates. It's that whole "sweet and salty for the win" combo. I had this in mind as I gathered my baking ingredients. And so...rather than chocolate chips for the cookie layer, I opted for peanut butter chips and candy corn.

The beauty of these is that you can use any brownie and cookie recipe combo to customize them to your liking.  This time I went with the Triple Fudge Ghiradelli brownie mix and the peanut butter chip/candy corn cookie mix. (And it was INCREDIBLE!) But the possibilities are endless. I've seen them with Oatmeal Scotchies baked on top of brownies and I imagine that peanut butter cookies with chopped Reese's cups stirred in would make for an amazing peanut butter/chocolate combination. Or hey, maybe stir in or top with some chopped up Halloween candy. You've gotta get rid of it before the Christmas candy starts rolling in, right? Be creative!

Let's gather the ingredients. A quick glance shows that you just need a brownie mix, oil, water, and egg for the brownie layer and ingredients for a small batch of cookie dough + whatever stir-ins you choose. In this case, I selected peanut butter chips and candy corn.

To get started, line an 8x8 or 9x9 baking pan with foil and spray with a little non-stick cooking spray or grease with butter.

Then prepare the brownie mix and pour it into the pan.

Prepare the cookie portion, just as you normally make cookies- cream the butter and sugars, add the egg and vanilla, beat in the dry ingredients until just mixed.

Finally, stir in the chips.

Drop the cookie dough by spoonful over the brownie batter. Or find a determined, brownie-lovin' 3 year old to complete this step for you. I recommend the latter. It was pretty entertaining.

You only want to use about 2/3 of the cookie batter. I took the remaining batter and baked it into 5 or 6 cookies. This was a really good thing, since these brookies took about an hour to bake and at least 20 minutes to cool to the point that they were ready to cut. Conversely, cookies only take 10 minutes to bake. I used the cookies to satiate the hungry crowd who was growing increasingly impatient for the brookies as the smell of them baking filled the house.

Gently press the cookie dough into the brownie batter and smooth it a bit.

Our finishing touch was the candy corn. My pre-schooler and I arranged a little over 1/4 cup on top and then gently pressed them into the dough for a festive fall twist.

Pop the pan into a 350 degree oven. The recipe recommended baking for 40 minutes. When I checked at 40 minutes, they were still really "jiggly" in the center. I continued baking them for another 20 minutes, checking at 5 minute intervals, until the center was a little more "set". Not completely firm- I do love my brownies pretty gooey- but the cookie layer should be baked so that a toothpick would come out clean if you tested it.

This was a very long wait for a certain young man...

The recipe also recommended covering with aluminum foil to allow the brookies to bake without getting too brown. I followed "Pinch of Yum's" suggestion, and baked them for 20 minutes uncovered, then 10 minutes covered, then I uncovered them for another 5-10, and finally I covered them up for the remaining baking time.

Hey! Maybe that's why they took so long to bake?!? I kept opening the oven! Ha!

Mine came out of the oven looking like this. Now you just need to let them sit and cool for a bit. I'd say 20-30 minutes is ideal.

Ugh. More waiting!

I cooled mine on a baking rack to allow cool air to get underneath and speed things along.

Finally, a little over two hours after I announced, "I'm baking brownies!" these were ready to cut and serve.

And let me tell you, they are worth the wait!

I actually had to take the last 9 over to the neighbor's today. I just couldn't stop eating them. Every time I walked by the plate I'd break off another piece. And that bite would be so good that I'd find a reason to walk by the plate again for another piece. And another. And another. My will power was just no match for the mighty "brookie". And so I made them my neighbors' problem. Aren't I thoughtful? (Insert evil Halloween laugh here).

Okay, so here's the recipe as adapted by me. If you have a chance, pop over to "Pinch of Yum" and read the original author's post. After all, she tested it like 4 times as she was perfecting the recipe. Once you try these amazing treats, I promise, you will join me in thanking her for the hard work!

Peanut Butter Chip-Candy Corn "Brookies" 

Adapted by Krista's Kitchen from Pinch of Yum

Ingredients:

• 1 stick salted butter (1/2 cup, very soft)
• ¾ cup white sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
• 1 egg
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup peanut butter chips
• 18.9 ounce brownie mix - I used Ghiradelli Triple Fudge mix
• (eggs, oil, and water for brownie mix)
• heaping 1/4 cup of candy corn

Instructions

1. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugars in a small mixing bowl. Add vanilla and egg; cream again until smooth. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir gently until incorporated. Stir in chips. Store in refrigerator until ready to use.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare brownie batter as directed. Pour batter into a foil lined and greased 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish. Scatter pieces of cookie dough over the top of the brownie batter. In my 8x8 square pan, I was able to get about ⅔ of the cookie dough to fit over the brownies and I just saved the rest for regular cookies. Press gently on the dough just until it starts to sink down into the batter a little bit and smooth slightly. Arrange candy corn evenly over the top, pressing gently into the cookie dough.
3. Bake for 40 minutes, then check for doneness, covering with foil if you need to keep the cookies from getting too brown on top. Let stand for 20-30 minutes and cut into pieces for serving.

Notes from Pinch of Yum:

Beware of taking these out too early because the cookies look brown - usually when I do that, the brownies are still underdone and they sink down in the middle. I found that it was easiest to alternate baking them covered and uncovered. I did the first 20 minutes uncovered, the next 10 minutes covered, and the last 5 minutes uncovered. This allows the brownies to bake without the cookies getting too brown. I've also taken foil and just made a cover around the edges so the middle can bake without burning the tops of the edges.

Lovely Lemon Cookies

These delicate lemon cookies just scream Springtime to me. They were perfectly soft, with a little built-in crunch bites courtesy of crushed lemon drop candies. I mailed a box of them to one of my sisters today. She's days away from delivering her third baby. On top of those final miserable days of pregnancy, she's chasing after her energetic 3 and 6 year old boys and teaching 3rd grade full-time! Talk about having her hands full! I thought that a box of these cheerful lemon cookies (lemon has been her major craving throughout the whole pregnancy), with a good book tucked into the bottom, might be just the thing to make her day. I'm banking on the fact that she doesn't have time to read this, so hopefully she'll be surprised!

Before I boxed em' up, I had a few too. The weather here has been so gloomy this week and these were like sweet little rays of sunshine!

Before I started mixing up the cookies, I prepared a couple of the ingredients. First, the lemon drops.

You have to crush them. I put mine into a plastic zip-top bag and pounded away at them with my meat mallet. You'll still get some lemon drop powder that sifts out through the holes made in the baggie by the jagged edges of the broken lemon drops, but this is the least messy way I could think of to smash the candies.

The recipe called for finely crushed lemon drops. I did leave some small chunks in the mix, which made for awesome bursts of lemon in the cookies. So, don't completely pulverize the lemon drops! Crush enough lemon drops for 1/2 cup. This came out to about half of the package.

The other bit of prep work that I did was to grate the lemon peel. I know that I bragged about my new Pampered Chef Microplane Grater in the Orange and Raspberry Muffin post, but it truly is the best tool I have found for grating citrus peel. Love it!

The recipe calls for a teaspoon, but I think that I used closer to a tablespoon.

Alright, now for the cookies. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

Add in an egg, heavy cream, and the lemon peel.

Combine flour, crushed lemon drops, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the dough.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough onto cookie sheets. I used my hands to roll them into balls for perfectly rounded cookies. Then bake for 8-10 minutes until they start to brown a bit on the bottom. You're going for a soft cookie here, so watch them carefully so that they don't overbake.

Let sit for a minute or two before removing the cookies to a cooling rack. You don't want to let them cool on the baking sheet for too long or the lemon drops in the cookies with start to harden and they will stick.

A little decorator's sugar on top of these would give a nice extra crunch. I might try that. I think that these would also make excellent sandwich cookies. Next time I'm going to come up with a lemon frosting filling. Watch out!

Lemon Drop Cookies from Taste of Home
Prep/Total Time: 25 min.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon half-and-half cream
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon peel
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup finely crushed lemon drops
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
•In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat
in the egg, cream and peel. Combine the flour, lemon drops, baking
powder and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture and mix well.

•Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 3 in. apart onto greased baking sheets.
Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly
browned. Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks. Yield:
about 3-1/2 dozen.

Nutrition Facts: 1 serving (2 each) equals 120 calories, 5 g fat (3 g saturated fat), 22 mg cholesterol, 97 mg sodium, 18 g carbohydrate, trace fiber, 1 g protein.

Quickie Peanut Butter Cookies

Last Spring, these flourless peanut butter cookies kept crossing my path. I forget where I first heard about them, but I kept seeing the recipe. One of the moms in my parenting group even brought them as a treat to our Monday morning meeting. They were so good and the recipe sounded super easy. But I never got around to making them. Then in June, Kim from Stirring the Pot posted the recipe on her blog. I bookmarked it. But still, the rest of the summer flew by and I didn't give another thought to these cookies. Finally, my daughter's first day of school rolled around and in her absence, I suddenly felt this maternal need to have a warm plate of cookies waiting for her when she returned home. I envisioned us sitting across the kitchen table, with the warm afternoon sun on our backs, enjoying this yummy snack and discussing her milestone day. I was short on time and didn't have many special ingredients around the house...and then I remembered this recipe! It was perfect. You just dump the 6 ingredients together. Stir, shape, and bake.

Dump the peanut butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla into a bowl. Stir until combined.



Then mix in the chocolate chips.



Scoop the dough in tablespoon sized portions, roll it into a ball between your hands, and press a cross hatch pattern into the top, using a table fork.



Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and enjoy. That's it! 2 dozen delicious cookies in 20 minutes. Gotta love that!



Here's the recipe as seen on Stirring the Pot:

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Emeril 20-40-60 Fresh Food Fast
Makes 24 cookies
Time: Start to Finish 20 minutes (Using 2 cookies sheets w/ 12 cookies on each)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Position two oven racks in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, and stir with a wooden spoon until smooth.

Divide the dough into 24 portions, about one tablespoon each. (I used a small ice cream scooper, which holds about one tablespoon). Roll each portion between your hands to form a smooth ball. Place the balls of dough on ungreased cookie sheets, spacing them 1 inch apart. You should get about 12 cookies per sheet. Using a fork, press on the dough in two directions to form a crosshatch pattern.

Bake the cookies, rotating the sheets between oven racks and turning them back to front midway, until the cookies are puffed and lightly golden, about 10 minutes. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and let the cookies cool on the sheets. Then remove them with a metal spatula.

My Favorite Cookie

What's your favorite cookie? Peanut butter? Oatmeal? Chocolate Chip? Butterscotch? Maybe you share my perspective on cookies. They're all good. Enter the Monster Cookie! It's a little bit of everything all rolled into one. Alanis Morissette, anyone? In a sentence sweet...

Anyway, I just love these cookies. I've eaten them since I was a little girl and they still top my list. Peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and to top it off...M&M's!



I rarely feature baked goods on this blog. Not because I don't love to bake...I do. I really do. Pies and cakes and cookies and brownies and muffins and bread and ...You see, I get so distracted when I think about sweets. But the fact is, I'm a consumer. That is, I consume large quantities of baked goods if I keep them around my house. I'm curvy by nature. And I love food. So, I exercise. Every. Single. Day. And I eat a balanced diet. But curvy trends toward pleasantly plump when I get on one of my baking jags. When I worked outside of the home, I could take my goodies to work and pawn them off on my co-workers. Now, no such luck. Lately I have resolved to bake only when there is an occasion. Like Memorial Day. It's a holiday for Heaven's sake. If that doesn't warrant baking, what does!? So I enlisted my daughter to help me whip up my favorite cookies. I thought they'd be a perfect snack for the road trip to our holiday destination and a hit at the pitch-in cook out we'll be attending when we arrive. I have to add that she was SO disappointed when she found that the cookies didn't actually look like monsters. I tried to explain, "Monster. Like giant. Huge. Larger than life. Like monter trucks..." My reasoning was lost on a 4 year old.

To make monster cookies I start by creaming a pound of butter with 2 pounds of brown sugar and 4 cups of white sugar. Oh yeah, and there's one whole tablespoon of corn syrup in there too. Is that weird to anyone else? Why do you think there's one tiny tablespoon of corn syrup in this massive amount of ingredients? No really, I'm serious. Does anyone know? Is that little tablespoon of corn syrup doing anything for the quality of my cookies? I mean, I know why I put it in...because that's the way we've always done it. But really, beyond that I'm not sure.



Next I break a dozen eggs into a bowl or large measuring cup. No shells allowed!



I beat the eggs a little and then had my trusty assistant add in 2 tablespoons of vanilla.



Mix the eggs into the butter and sugar. It'll look like this.



Then I measured out 18 cups of quick oats and combined them with 8 teaspoons of baking soda. Here is my big bowl of dry ingredients next to my big bowl of wet ingredients. Where on earth am I going to mix them together? Both my mom and grandma have giant bowls, like the size that I can wrap my arms around. Those giant bowls make combining and mixing these ingredients easy. I don't have one of those bowls. I could use a big roasting pan. Nope. I don't have one of those either. My wish list keeps growing... Luckily, I do have one more large bowl. I ended up dividing the "wet" ingredients in half and then adding half of the dry ingredients to each bowl, so that I had two large mixing bowls full of cookie dough in the end.



Oh wait, the peanut butter. We can't forget about the peanut butter. You need 3 lbs. I found this 4 lb. tub on sale at a local discount grocery last week. I wonder how many peanuts it takes to make 4 lbs. of peanut butter? Hmmm.



Mix the peanut butter into the "wet" ingredients.



Now we stir in the oatmeal mixture. The more you pour in, the harder it gets to stir.



Now for the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and M&M's.



At this point, we have to abandon our spoons and work the chips and candy into the dough with our clean hands.



Drop by 1/3 cupfulls onto an ungreased baking sheet. They bake for 13-15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. I like mine soft and chewy vs. crispy.



Cool.



Enjoy.



This recipe makes a ton of cookies. By a ton, I mean, I filled my cookie jar twice, took a plate to a friend's house, gave a few to the neighbors, I'll take to a tray to the Memorial Day cookout, and I still put 4 bags in my freezer. These freeze well. Perfect to pull out when company is coming or when you forgot to make something for the PTA bake sale. I have to store cookies in the garage freezer. That way I have to make a little extra effort if I'm tempted. I'm so bad that I actually try to justify eating these as a healthy breakfast. You know, because there's protein in the peanut butter and the oatmeal is a good source of dietary fiber.

I just put mine on a paper plate and then...



slide the plate into a labelled freezer bag.



Monster Cookies

1 lb. butter
2 lbs. brown sugar
4 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 dozen eggs, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons vanilla
3 lbs. creamy peanut butter
18 cups oatmeal
8 teaspoons baking soda
12 oz. pkg. of both butterscotch and chocolate chips
1 lb. M&M's candy

Cream butter and sugars. Add in eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Add in peanut butter. Mix well again. Combine dry ingredients. Dump the dry ingredients into the "wet" ingredients gradually. Stir until it becomes too difficult and then dump in the chips and candy and use your hands until all ingredients are combined. Drop by 1/3 cupfulls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Christmas Cutout Cookies

My favorite cutout cookie recipe is:

White Velvet Cutouts

2 cups butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese
2 cups sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour

Cream the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add the sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla and mix well. Gradually add the flour. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Roll out to 1/4" thickness and cut out cookies. Bake at 350degrees for 10-12 minutes.

You may remember them from my post about Pumpkin Cutout cookies way back in October. When I originally posted this recipe, I showed the rolling and cutting out process, but not the part where I combined 2 cups of butter and a package of cream cheese with 4 other ingredients to make the dough for these yummy cookies. So in the tradition of Paul Harvey, oldest syndicated radio personality in America, here is the rest of the story...

Cream 2 cups of butter with 8 oz. of cream cheese.



Now add in 2 egg yolks, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 cups of sugar.


Gradually add in the 4 1/2 cups of flour and mix until all of the flour is incorporated into the dough.


Now, I like to separate the dough into 3-4 parts and wrap individually in plastic. You're supposed to chill it for 2 hours. I usually make mine the night before baking.


You'll eventually roll the dough out to 1/4" thickness on a floured surface, cut out the cookies using the cutter of your choice and bake them at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. But that's not the fun part, so lets jump ahead to the decorating!

You can make your plain old iced Christmas cutouts fancy by using a couple of decorating tips and some sprinkles. I like to use Butter Cream Icing on these cutouts.

Butter Cream Icing

1/2 cup Crisco shortening
2 tablespoons butter
Cream the first two ingredients together.
Add 1 lb. powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
About 1/3 cup milk
Add the milk slowly. You want the frosting more fluffy than runny, so when you reach the desired consistency, stop pouring the milk.

As I said, I like to used butter cream icing for the cookies, however this time I just used 2 tubs of store bought frosting. Shame on me. I'd had my fill of making icing with the gingerbread barn. Plus, the store icing really does spread nicely and we weren't making that many cookies. A word of caution, just allow extra time for the store bought icing to dry on the cookies before you plate them up to give away.

I divided my icing into 5 small bowls and then colored it.

Red- Stockings and Candy Canes
Green- Christmas Trees
Yellow- Bells and Stars
Blue- to outline the stars. You don't need very much of this
White- for the "fur" on top of the stockings and the lines on the candy canes

I put a little red and blue icing into decorating bags with writing tips and yellow and white icing into bags with star tips. The rest of the icing went to frost the cookies.

I'll start with the tree cookies. I frosted them green and then sprinkled with nonpareils to look like little Christmas balls. Then I piped five or six swags with red icing onto the tree for garland and used the star tipped yellow icing to put a little star on top. Super easy.


To decorate the stocking cookies, I frosted them red. Then I piped on white icing with a star tip. Make a zig zag motion as you squeeze the icing out. I sprinkled with a little red sugar.


The bells get frosted yellow or gold and sprinkled with gold sugar. I piped a red ribbon at the top.


The candy canes get frosted red and then I pipe on white stripes with a star tip. You could also frost them white and use the red icing with a writing tip to make stripes.


The stars are frosted yellow and then I sprinkle on some blue sugar and I outline the star with blue icing. I've also done orange outlines and sprinkles with these. The stars are my favorite.


Now that my decorating is finished, I turned the fun task of decorating the last 2 dozen cookies over to my daughter and her friend. I just set the bowls of icing and all of the sprinkles on the table and let them have at it. Of course, I supervised closely with napkins in hand.


A helpful hint: small utensils for spreading the icing work better for small hands. I had the girls use little cheese knives to ice their cookies.


The result of their sweet work:


Here are a few close ups of some of my favorites:





Happy Holidays!