Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies and Pure Decadence

Yesterday my darling friend Izzy, had our family, along with a few other friends, over to her house for a barbecue. And of course, besides bringing a side dish, I had to make something sweet to end the meal.

I found this the perfect opportunity to make Smitten Kitchen's absolutely drool-worthy Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies that she most recently blogged about. If there is something that my family really loves, it is chocolate. And, if there is something that my husband and son really love, it is brownies. I quite enjoy cheesecake, but the boys in my house (ie: the hubby and little monkey) are not really fans. So having cheesecake is rather a rare occurrence. However, when I showed my husband the amazing pictures of the brownies, he agreed that they definitely looked to be worth trying.

That was all the indication I needed to make them. Enough said.

As I went into the kitchen, laptop in tow, to start preparing the brownies; I noticed that the recipe was only meant to yield an 8 x 8 pan worth. Normally, I would just double to recipe to accommodate our larger crowd. Unfortunately for me, I only had enough unsweetened chocolate and cream cheese on hand for one batch; a result of a busy week of baking experiments. I also did not have enough time to go to the store to restock, bake, and cool the brownies before the event. So I started thinking about what could be paired with the brownies to extend this recipe to fit in a 9 x 13 pan. After some thinking, I figured chocolate chip cookies would be a great accompaniment to these decadent looking brownies. Specifically, a brown sugar chocolate chip cookie dough (since, once again, this week's baking had left me extremely low on granulated white sugar). The recipe is at the end of this blog.

And behold, these chewy, chocolaty, rich bits of heaven were born.

Everyone raved about these cheesecake-marbled brownie chocolate chip cookies bars (I might have to come up with a shorter name) last night. And the left over brown sugar chocolate chip cookie dough makes lovely cakey, crispy on the edges, cookies. A perfect Sunday afternoon: some brown sugar chocolate chip cookies and an ice cold glass of milk. Decadence!

BROWN SUGAR CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

(Makes about 3-4 dozen. Recipe adapted from Baking Blonde.)

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (I used shortening, it yields a cakier cookie)
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 3/4 tsp Kosher salt (I used 1/2 tsp regular salt)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used semisweet mini chips)
• 2 tbsp water (omit this if using butter)

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

1. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl; set aside.
2. Beat the butter and brown sugar until thoroughly blended.
3. Add eggs, and vanilla and mix well.
4. Then add dry ingredients and mix just until all the flour is blended.
5. Gently fold in your chocolate pieces.
6. Scoop desired size of dough onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
7. Bake 10-12 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies and your oven) or until cookies are just turning golden brown.
8. Cool cookies on cookie sheets for 5 minutes. Then transfer to cooling rack until cooled completly. Serve or store in airtight container.