TWD: Chipster-Topped Brownies

Every once in awhile one of Dorie's recipes will break your heart, and for me, this was the one. I was rather ambivilant about the recipe -- chocolate chip cookie dough on top of brownies seems a little excessive. It's the "one of a good thing means 5 will be better" kind of thinking that is the root cause of much that is wrong in modern times. But I was willing to give this recipe a shot. I love chocolate chip cookies. I love brownies. How could this go wrong?

It went wrong in one way - not getting cooked enough. When I came out to the kitchen the next morning and saw the crater in the middle of the pan, my heart sunk (just like this recipe!). Although I cooked it for the required amount of time, and did the test per Dorie's instructions, the middle was not cooked enough. The edges were cooked a little too much. If I were to make this again I'd make it in two smaller pans rather than in one large one.

I followed the directions and everything went great. I did use the nuts (stunningly I had just enough on hand), and had no problem getting the cookie dough on top of the brownie layer. The brownie layer seemed to set up nicely while putting the dough together, and I didn't have the problems there that some seemed to comment on in the P&Qs this week.

Since I planned on bringing these to work for an occassion, I tried to save the middle pieces by sending them back to the oven for a short time. Crazy, I know, but desparate times require desparate measures (it was a whole lot of chocolate and butter to just go to waste. I had to try something!). After 6-7 minutes in a 350 degree oven......well.......see for yourself.........

Before.........


After.........

Despite the trouble and heartbreak, these were very tasty and my co-workers gobbled them up. Sadly there were only a few that were just right rather than too soft or too dry (perhaps I'll call these the Goldilocks bars - I kind of like that!).

The recipe can be found at Supplicious and was picked by Beth. I always feel bad when I make something that doesn't turn out -- I don't want the one who picked to think they picked a dud! So Beth, although it was a mixed result, the part that was edible was really tasty (okay -- even the melty version above, super tasty!).