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We may be a little obsessed with making brownie recipes around here.
From your choice of frosted cake brownies or fudgy brownies to brownie cupcakes and (now) these brownie cookies, you have all the options in your hot little hands.
I love Lora Brody. I read her first book, “Growing up on the Chocolate Diet: A Memoir with Recipes” during the second unraveling of my marriage (it wasn’t until the third unraveling when those threads frayed far beyond saving).
Lora kept me laughing with her witty memoir and cookbook combination. Thank you, Lora. After that, I scooped up any and every cookbook of hers I could find (the more flour-spattered and sugar-crusted, the better). You know I enjoy signs of a well-loved cookbook when I add it to my cookbook collection.
Table of Contents
- Lora Brody: Chocolate Fan
- Making Brownie Cookies with Toffee Chips (Heath)
- Why You’ll Love These Soft Fudgy Brownie Cookies
- Baking This Brownie Cookies Recipe
- Soft Fudgy Chocolate Cookies with Toffee Bits
- Cookbooks by Lora Brody
- Related Recipes
Lora Brody: Chocolate Fan
Lora Brody loves chocolate. Hey, me too. But she wrote multiple cookbooks featuring that beloved ingredient whereas I just eat it. Lora humorously wrote how these chocolate cookies are especially a hit with kids because kids don’t like to chew.
Let me tell you what — they are a hit with my teen sons and I, too. “Chocolate American Style” by Lora Brody is the cookbook of your chocolate cookie dreams. The back cover has an image and one quote:
Who needs a bigger endorsement than that? Lora also wrote “Chocolate” (1993) for the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library Series plus two other Kitchen Library titles (linked below) and, yes, Chuck Williams was the editor.
In her introduction, Lora Brody comments on how chocolate is among the most difficult to photograph. I hadn’t considered the difficulty of getting chocolate to look good in an image until I read that passage.
You would think maybe this book would skimp on the images then, but no. Roughly every other page features a terrific image from one of Lora’s fantastic chocolate recipe creations.
This 8 x 1 x 10.25-inch, 278-page (including the recipe index) cookbook is a must-have. I don’t say that lightly. It’s one of those books where, when you go to make a little list of what you want to bake out of it, you realize it’s darn near the whole thing.
Browse the recipe index to get an idea of the large assortment. Cocoa powder, melted chocolate, chunks of chocolate, white chocolate, cacao nibs — all the chocolate types are in here.
Look for the Candy-Filled Peanut Butter Cookie, Lora’s take on the chocolate chip cookie, and Narsai David’s Chocolate Decadence (Death by Chocolate), which uses only a handful of ingredients (such as granulated sugar, a pound of bittersweet chocolate, and butter) — and led to a marriage proposal (page 246).
I would love to try making Lora’s White Chocolate Coeurs a la Creme (you need Coeur a la Creme molds or ramekins), the Candy Manor Peppermint Hot Chocolate, and her Chocolate Chip Muffins (but using her instructions to turn it into a chocolate chip coffee cake).
If you have the baking essentials: baking soda, baking powder, vanilla extract, all-purpose flour, light brown sugar, salt, espresso powder, and chocolate in several forms, you likely have the ingredients to make many recipes in this chocolate-centered cookbook without needing to head to the store.
But really, these chocolate brownie cookies are where it’s at. Start here.
Making Brownie Cookies with Toffee Chips (Heath)
This cookie recipe felt familiar. I had the nagging feeling I made it before, but I knew I’d never made a chocolate cookie with Heath bits.
Once I took them out of the oven, my suspicions were confirmed. I had made something similar because this is not just a soft chocolate toffee cookie, it’s a soft brownie cookie with bits of toffee. If you don’t know, a brownie cookie truly tastes like a brownie. They tend to be flat and a little bigger than your typical homemade cookie.
The addition of Heath toffee bits in there is fantastic. It adds that something extra. They happen to top the list of cookie favorites with my youngest son. It’s not hard to see why. These are soft cookies with big chocolate flavor.
Unlike most cookie recipes, you do not want to eat these cookies warm. I know that seems wrong, but trust me on this. I will karate chop your hand away from the cooling rack. Wars have started over less.
These brownie cookies are best at room temperature.
Why You’ll Love These Soft Fudgy Brownie Cookies
I prefer cookies, cakes, and other snacks and desserts on the sweeter side. I wish I loved dark chocolate so I could eat it and proclaim it was for the potential health benefits as part of a healthy lifestyle (as indicated by this GetMeGiddy report and Cleveland Clinic article).
Alas, I’m typically not a fan (unless it’s the dark chocolate pretzels or nonpareils from Purity Chocolate in Lewisburg, PA). But I don’t see why you couldn’t swap out the semisweet chocolate chip cupful for dark chocolate chips if you so desired.
Here’s another perk. This brownie cookies recipe doesn’t require softened unsalted butter. You’ll use a combination of melted butter (I use salted butter for its keeping longevity) and chopped chocolate for fudgy chocolate cookies you’ll crave. You will. You’ll see.
You can bake cookies from scratch. You don’t have to rely on a brownie mix. Why not give this recipe a whirl?
Baking This Brownie Cookies Recipe
Use parchment paper or a silicone mat for this brownie cookies recipe. As with most cookie recipes, a baking spray can cause your cookies to spread more than you’d like. Parchment paper (or a silicone mat) will positively change your cookie baking.
Check out King Arthur Baking Parchment & Mats for a variety of sizes to fit your full-size and half-sheet pans. There’s nothing more convenient.
It’s simple to prep your cookie sheet and your cookies won’t stick. Not ever. Clean-up is a breeze. Plus, you can reuse the parchment paper on your baking sheet multiple times, so once you pop it on the baking sheet, you can bake the whole batch of cookies.
Let me give you three pieces of advice regarding this recipe: Do not overbake, do not overbake, do not overbake.
Set your timer for the low end of the recipe’s time range. If your oven seems to run warmer (most recipes are done in less time), then check even sooner. Pull out the cookie sheet to get a good look at it. Then, go with your gut. Does it look done? Is the middle still soft but the top is crackly and dry? If so, then it’s good to go.
Soft Fudgy Chocolate Cookies with Toffee Bits
Equipment
- 1 Cookie Sheet
- 1 Electric Stand Mixer
Ingredients
- 8 Ounces Bittersweet Chocolate Coarsely Chopped
- 2 Tablespoons (1 Ounce) Unsalted Butter I use salted butter. This recipe uses melted butter (it will melt with the chopped chocolate) so you don't need to worry about softening it.
- 1/4 Cup (1/25 Ounces) All-Purpose Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/8 teaspoon Salt
- 3/4 Cup (6 Ounces) Light Brown Sugar Packed
- 2 Extra-Large Eggs I used two large eggs
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 3/4 Cup (3.5 Ounces) Toffee Bits (Health Bits)
- 1 Cup (5 Ounces) Semisweet Chocolate Chips I tend to use Milk Chocolate Chips.
Instructions
- 350* oven.
- Line your baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone pan liner and set aside.
- Melt the chopped chocolate and butter together in a small bowl. You can carefully microwave the two, stirring often, or you can set a bowl above simmering water in a pot (without letting the bowl touch the boiling water), stirring often.
- After the chocolate is melted, set aside the mixture to cool.
- Combine the dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt, in a small bowl.
- Set the light brown sugar and eggs in the bowl of your electric stand mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until the eggs feel thick and look lighter in color.
- Beat in the cooled melted chocolate and butter mixture and the vanilla extract (you may know it as vanilla essence).
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the all-purpose flour mixture, stopping the mixer and scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- When a few streaks of flour remain, use a wooden spoon to stir in the Heath toffee bits and the milk chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips. Mix only until combined.
- Use your 1 Tablespoon cookie scoop (mine is a 1 1/2 Tablespoon cookie dough scoop), and place the cookie dough onto your parchment paper covered cookie sheets, about 2 1/2" apart.
- Bake at 350* for 10 to 13 minutes or until the tops of the cookies look dry and cracked. They will still feel soft. They will look done (look for the color change). Do NOT overbake. These cookies will become more firm as they cool to room temperature.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, let them cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet, and then remove them to the cooling rack to completely cool to room temperature before eating them.
- Store the chocolate brownie cookies in a reusable plastic container at room temperature for up to one week.
Cookbooks by Lora Brody
I own “Growing Up on the “Chocolate Diet,” “Chocolate American Style,” and “Pizza, Focaccia, Flat and Filled Breads For Your Bread Machine: Perfect Every Time” so far. Lora ranks right up there as one of my all-time favorites. I’m on an endless hunt to find the rest of her cookbooks.
Pizza, Focaccia, Flat and Filled Breads For Your Bread Machine: Perfect Every Time (1995) by Lora Brody (Amazon) (eBay)
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