Brookies: A Kid Friendly Recipe!

Last week I had the privilege of hanging out with my godbrother's daughter (my godneice?). She's 2 1/2 and completely adorable. She knows all her alphabet, along with what sounds they make and is a solid counter. She also has awesome manners and never says "yeah", but always answers with "yessss" (very Napoleon Dynamite-esque). 

Since she's such a baby genius, I thought it'd be fun to try out a recipe I'd been wanting to make for a while with her - brookies. Not quite brownies. Not quite cookies. A glorious morph between the two - hence the name. 

No surprises here, you make a pan of brownies and a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. I made the brownies the night before I was planning on making the brookies so they would have plenty of time to cool. I made a batch of Ghiradelli chocolate chunk brownies and ended up using about 1/2 of pan for the brookies. The brownies have to be cut in small squares (1" x 1/2" or 1" x 1"), otherwise the brookies end up being ginormous.

A few hours before I wanted to start making the brookies, I made the cookie dough so it could chill in the refrigerator before assembling the brookies.

Now, here's where it'd be really great to have an extra set of (little) hands. I know it doesn't look like it, but I promise, she was excited to get to help bake. My mom and I took the cookie dough (about a 1" ball) and flattened it out into a disc, perfect for our little helper to drop the brownie bite into. Apparently all the flattening of dough looked fun, because all our brownies eventually ended up that way (hence the firm, clutched little hand smothering the brownie above). It was okay though, once the brownie eventually made it onto the cookie disc (squished or not), it was completely covered with the cookie dough and sent to the oven to bake.

Note the deformed brownie & excitement

After about 10 minutes in the oven, this is what the brookies looked like. At first, it seems just like an ordinary chocolate chip cookie.

Oh, but wait. There's a gooey, rich brownie tucked away inside. Genius.

The best part, of course, is eating the chocolate chip cookie just to discover the pillow of chocolately goodness that awaits you at the center.

It might even be good enough to shovel it in your mouth using both hands, or at least that was the idea here.

And if you give a toddler a cookie, chances are, she'll ask for a glass of milk.

With a crazy straw.