Pillow Cookies

After being in the new house for a few days Shane asked that I bake for him as he missed it while living in Auckland while I wound things up in New Plymouth. Pillow cookies have been on my list for a while so I decided to give them a go and try out the oven (for baking purposes anyways, all dinners thus far have come out of the oven just as good or better than usual – YAY!), they were a success and are sure to become a household favourite – you can’t go wrong with delish chocolate chip cookies, add brownie pieces and hello heaven!


Ingredients:
12 pieces of brownie (cut into roughly 1.5-2cm squares)
225 grams butter, room temperature
1¼ cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2¼ cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
250 grams dark chocolate chips

Method:
Make your brownie and cut into 12 1.5-2cm squares, if you are one step ahead of the game use brownie you have already made and want to use the rest of… I suggest Natalie’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie, you will need less than half of it to use inside the cookies so bonus you get to enjoy that as well!
To make your cookie dough, beat your butter until it is nice and creamy (2-3 minutes)
Add brown sugar and beat until smooth.
Add eggs and vanilla and beat again ensuring everything is well combined, you may need to scrape the sides of your bowl.
Sift in flour, baking powder, soda and salt fold with your spatula before mixing on a medium to low speed.
Once your dough is starting to come together add your chocolate chips and mix well to make sure they are distributed evenly.
Cover your bowl and place it in the fridge for 45-90 minutes to chill.
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C.
Scoop 1/4 cup of dough at a time and place it on a baking tray lined with wax baking paper, only bake 6 cookies per tray to ensure there is plenty of space as these are large cookies.
Make an indentation in the middle of each cookie with your thumb and insert the brownie into this, work the surrounding dough so that it covers the top of the brownie.
Bake in your pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes (until they are a lovely golden-golden/brown) before removing and placing on a wire rack to cool.
Enjoy with a glass of cold milk!


If you want to make cookie pops like the one above all you need to do is slide a lollipop stick into middle of your cookies before baking.So simple and so cute!

Cookie Dough Brownies

A few weeks ago I saw a cookie dough inspired post on ‘Love From The Oven’, a blog I follow – it reminded me of these amazing but incredibly easy brownies my idol ‘Bakerella’ made a couple of years ago,  I hadn’t attempted them as yet as we didn’t have some of her “cheat” ingredients here in New Zealand.  Sure enough Bakerella’s brownies were featured further down the post so I went back and looked at the original and decided that I could definitely make them (by swapping out the ‘Hershey’s Brownie Mix’ with another Betty Crocker mix – I used ‘Triple Chocolate Fudge’) and so can you!  They are super easy but sure to impress, all you need is:

 
Follow the instructions on the boxes, making the brownies first, pouring the mix into your tin or dish then placing blobs of the made up cookie mixture on top.  If the cookie dough doesn’t sink into the mix just give it a gentle push down.

 Pre cooking

Then place in the oven and bake according to the boxes instructions for temperature and about 30-35 minutes.

Baked Brownie (sorry about the photo quality – it was night time).

Now at this point you could allow your brownie to cool, cut it into slices and eat by itself or dusted with icing sugar.  Me, I took a lead out of Bakerella’s book and covered mine with a chocolate ganache – the hardest part about doing this is waiting for the ganache to set!

Chocolate Ganache:
1 Cup Cream
50 grams Butter
120 grams Dark Cooking Chocolate (cut up roughly)

In a small saucepan, heat cream and butter until just before the boiling stage.  Pour over the chocolate.
Let stand about 30 seconds and stir until smooth.
Pour over brownies and let set before cutting (to help mine along I put the dish in the fridge to set).

Next time I make these I think I will try using ‘Natalie’s Brownie’ recipe, which I’m sure will only make them better!  Give them a go and if you get around to making them using Natalie’s brownie recipe before me, let me know how they turned out by leaving a comment.

Thank you Bakerella and thank you Betty Crocker!
(You will all be thanking me too – once you give them a go)

Natalie’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie

This is a recipe that Courtenay and I got off Natalie, a friend and work colleague of ours.  She brought this into school once and we just had to have the recipe.

100g cocoa
200g butter, melted
400g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
90g flour
200g chocolate chips / buttons

Sift cocoa into a large mixing bowl.  Add the melted butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla essence.  Mix to a smooth paste.

Sift in the flour.  Add in the chocolate chips.  Mix, then pour into a 20cm x 20cm tin.

Bake for 65 minutes at 150˚C.  Voilà!