From Scratch to Scrumptious

My friend recently asked if I could bake some desserts for a family event. Her mother-in-law had tasted a few of my treats over the years and wanted to know if I would make them for her. The last thing she wanted was “something chocolate”.

I went with Fudgy Brownie Cookies. They’re easy to transport, easy to serve and downright delicious! They were a big hit! Of all the fancy things I sent, this cookie made the biggest splash. Want to find out why? Yes, you do!

I love brownies. Who doesn’t? But brownies aren’t portable. If you put a brownie in a lunchbox, it’s very possible that by lunchtime, it will be an unappealing blob. Is it still delicious? Of course! Does that mean your kid will still eat it? Of course not.

Cookie pieces still look like cookie pieces. If your cookie suffers a terrible mishap in the lunchbox, it’s still identifiable as a cookie. It will be eaten!

Will you ever let a single one of these out of your house? Will a cookie ever make it past your mouth and into a lunchbox? Better make a double batch, just to be safe.

Salt

The first step in almost every cookie recipe is creaming the fat and sugar. In this case, we use softened butter, meaning that the butter is left out at room temperature for about half an hour. Set your electric mixer to medium-high speed and cream the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar for a good 3-5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Next, whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk gently because cocoa powder loves to splash out everywhere and make a mess.

Mix the dry ingredients slowly into the creamed mixture. Again, go slowly so your mixer doesn’t toss cocoa powder all over your kitchen!

Once the dough is fully mixed, cover and put it in the fridge for about 3 hours to allow the butter to firm up. You can wait a day or more before baking, but, unlike chocolate chip cookies, there’s no improvement in flavor from waiting longer. You just want the batter to firm up so that it doesn’t spread too much in the oven.

Scoop the dough with a cookie scoop or a spoon and round out the dough. Keep the dough balls in the fridge until immediately before going in the oven.

As they bake, these cookies will rise up like every other cookie. If you bake these right, almost immediately after they come out of the oven, they’ll sink down and become flat. Don’t worry; that’s what you want! It means they’re still soft enough to be fudgy.

Be sure not to overbake these cookies! If you do, they will become crunchy brownie cookies. I guess maybe they’d be more like Brownie Brittle? But as for me, I love fudgy!

You may want to run a test cookie before baking a whole cookie sheet full of cookies. I have found that the difference between crunchy and fudgy cookies is baking only a minute less!

Because these cookies are soft, let them sit for 5 minutes to firm up before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

A 1 1/2 Tablespoon scoop of cookie dough will result in a bakery-sized cookie. This is great if you’re bringing the cookies to an event, but may be a bit big for smaller kids. (Or if you’re like me, I’d rather eat a few small cookies instead of one big cookie.)

To make a smaller cookie, use a 1 Tablespoon cookie scoop like this Progressive Quick Release Cookie Scoop (Amazon link). Baking time is about 1 minute less when baking a smaller cookie.

These are easy to make ahead and freeze to bake later. For the densest cookie, I recommend making the dough and refrigerating it for 3 hours (or more) before scooping the dough into balls for freezing.

If you’re short on time, you can scoop the dough into balls immediately after making the dough, but they may be a little lighter. Both ways will be fine. The only person who may notice the difference will be you.

Place balls of dough on a plate in the freezer for 4 or more hours (or overnight). Then, remove to a tightly-covered container or storage baggie until ready to bake. Store frozen up to 4 months.

Place frozen dough directly onto a cold baking sheet. Add 1 minute to normal baking time when baking from frozen.

Store at room temperature in a tightly covered container for 2-3 days.

Most cookies freeze beautifully, Fudgy Brownie Cookies included! Cover tightly and store in the freezer for 2-4 months.