Brownie-filled Cookie Experiment Part I: Cookie Recipes

The grocery store cookie aisle is full of all sorts of amazing (and horrifying) combinations of classic cookies. Oreos come with a variety of filling flavors: mint, peanut butter, birthday cake, carrot cake, etc. Chocolate chip cookies have all sorts of good additives like nuts, M&Ms, peanuts, peanut butter, peanut butter cups, etc. One particular cookie was a favorite of our kids: Chewy Chips Ahoy with Fudge Brownie inside. I decided we should try to recreate them at home as a summer project. Like any proper project, it got the whiteboard treatment:

What's worse, the handwriting or the lighting? Be honest, this is for posterity...

Each of us had to find a chocolate chip cookie recipe and a brownie recipe. First, we would make each separately and judge which would go together best. We figured we need a cookie dough that can hold the brownie mix inside. The brownie mix would have to be thicker so as not to spread around if it leaks out of the cookie dough ball. Maybe we should pre-cook the brownie part? Or partially cook it? There were a lot of questions but a clear first step: make a lot of chocolate chip cookies.

The first chocolate chip cookie recipe from BakeWise by Shirley Corriher yielded delicious cookies that may not be the best for this project. Part of the problem was leaving out an ingredient. The recipe calls for taking pecans and turning them via food processor into flour (not butter--don't overchop them!) and adding that during dough creation. The addition would have added more volume to the cookies but the chef does not like pecans so they got dropped. 

Dough sans nuts

We had to refrigerate the dough overnight after giving it a cylindrical shape. We made the dough round like a log and wrapped it as well as we could with plastic wrap. The idea was to cut cookie-sized chunks off the dough the next day. So the dough seemed like it would be thick enough to have a fudge brownie mix center. We didn't achieve the most round or shapely of results.

Logs, huh?

Even with all the hassle and changes, the recipe still turned out well if a little thin. The cookies were tasty but probably won't hold the brownie inside. Maybe they'd make a bullseye cookie/brownie combo?

Finished product

The second recipe (from this website) was much more satisfactory on the thickness if somewhat equivalent in flavor. The recipe called less refrigeration though they do say the dough could go for three or four days of refrigeration. The cookies came out well and could be a candidate for the final cookie dough.

Finished product

The third recipe (from this website) also resulted in thick chocolate chip cookies and could also be a contender. The at-least-a-day refrigeration requirement also resulted in nicely flavored cookies though scooping the dough into balls after refrigeration was tough. We tried just using our hands but that was very messy and maybe warmed up the dough too much? 

Hand-fashioned dough balls

Finished product

The fourth recipe (from this website) only required ten minutes of refrigeration, though the cookie dough was supposed to be separated into doughballs before going in the fridge. The recipe recommended using a 2-3 tablespoon scoop, which we did. The cookies came out gigantic. And flat. So the recipe tasted great but probably won't be good for stuffing.

We kept some notes (i.e., I wrote this blog post) and then moved on to testing the brownie recipes, which will show up soon in their own post.