This dessert meets the requirement of tasting yummy, while simultaneously delivering high on the "That looks so cool! How did you do that?" scale. And to top it off, it's stupid easy.
While the original recipe that I saw at Bakerella is quite good, it's just that good, ol' Momma Necessity helped make this dessert the hit that it is. The basic jist is this: Make a brownie box mix. Make a cookie dough box mix. Combine. Bake. Add ganache. Cool. Eat.
The rub was that I made the mixes... only to discover that I didn't have a dish to make it all cake/brownie style! In a fit of improvisation (and a need to take something to the party I was going to in, oh, and hour), I thought, "Cupcakes!"
Long story short, you pour the brownie batter into the cupcake molds, push a small ball of cookie dough into the middle, then bake. Pick a temp somewhere in the middle of the two mixes, and start checking it on the short end of whatever the brownie mix lists.
The end result is a brownie with a nifty cookie center and marbling. Big hit with the kids. Surprise, surprise.
A couple of hints:
- Since cookies aren't designed to be as structurally sound baking vertically as brownies are, the more cookie dough you put in the middle, the more your cupcake will collapse upon cooling. The size ball you'd use for a small cookie works great.
- An alternative is to cover the whole top of the brownie with cookie dough, which gives you a cookie center and cookie top. This looks cool, but you don't taste as much of the brownie.
- And you lose the yummy crispy brownie top bits.
- I later made the recipe as originally written. I found it to be a bit too sweet for my tastes with the ganache. I know, crazy. And it becomes pretty messy, which works great to go along with, say, a bowl of ice cream, but I think the cupcake approach works better for parties, what with their handy single-servingness.
- And not making ganache=less work!
Enjoy! Experiment! Eat!
In my dorm, these would have gone like hotcakes... only tastier! Mmmmm, chocolate chip cookie brownie cupcakes. I might have to make these for Babykins' first birthday party this Saturday.
Posted by: Motormouth | Aug 20, 2009 at 08:56 PM
Okay.. these cupcakes keep following me... from Facebook to here to Tumblr.... Triplicate posting!
Posted by: jeri | Aug 21, 2009 at 01:55 AM
It all started here!
Facebook grabs this blog's feed and imports it as a note. Tumblr grabs the feed and imports it as a link.
Posted by: Doug | Aug 21, 2009 at 10:48 AM
Lex and I made these last night and they ROCK. Thanks, Doug.
Posted by: Motormouth | Aug 22, 2009 at 08:46 PM