Brownies and Cookies and Baking, Oh My!

Everybody loves brownies. Everybody also loves cookies. And sometimes, it's just too hard to choose. Luckily, the immortal Dorie Greenspan has saved us from deprivation and decision-making by creating Chipster-Topped Brownies.

Sarah baked the delightful duo with some old friends from Hebrew high school. Hebrew high school forms lifelong bonds of friendship and a love of Jewish learning/eating artery-clogging crap. If you would like to know the nutritional value of our Chipster-Topped Brownies (you don't), all you have to do is observe the photo below (credit to my friend Alex):


Notice the additional butter lurking innocently in the corner. But enough of that.

Now, anyone who has ever baked a lot in college knows that dorm baking is all about improvisation — or, if you prefer, "ghettoness." This is the only way that the Baking Sisters are every going to get ghetto street cred, so we will go with it. In any case, this particular baking session took place in a dorm, which lacked a mixer and any measurement instruments smaller than one cup, yet we persevered. This became problematic when it came to beating the butter, because the butter is supposed to be beaten until it is smooth and creamy and instead we sort of just mashed it with our hands until it submitted. I wonder if this caused a dearth of volume in our cookie batter, because when I've made these in the past the cookie layer has fully covered the brownie layer, and there was not enough to do that this time. (It may also have been that, in true ghetto fashion, we were not equipped with a rubber spatula to spread the batter.)

Luckily, despite all these hardships, the CTBs came out deliciously. These are VERY rich, so be sure to cut them into very small pieces!