Globe-cooking recipe : Brownie Cookies (USA)

After a totally boring (but highly productive) afternoon marking and filling in school reports, I decided to head into the kitchen and bake something scrumptious before starting on dinner. So what should I make? Cookies ? Brownies? I had a lightbulb moment and remembered a recipe for some delicious-sounding Brownie Cookies that I'd favourited on a fabulous blog that I've only started following recently, The Pioneer Woman. I highly recommend you head over to see the original recipe and check out some of her other cowboy classics while you're over there ! I've tweaked the recipe a bit and converted it from American to metric measurements to make it easier.

 Brownie Cookies

ingredients :

55g chocolate (milk or dark, cooking chocolate would do fine)

225g margarine or butter

450g sugar

3 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

325g plain flour

1tbsp baking powder

75g cocoa powder

1/2tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave. I had a bar of chocolate with puffed rice in it to use up, which worked just fine, although I had to be careful it didn't burn as I was melting it.

While the chocolate is cooling,cream together the margarine and sugar. (Butter would give it a richer flavour but margarine is so much easier to cream by hand, especially for mini bakers !)

Tip in the cooled but still melted chocolate and mix.

Whisk in the eggs one at a time.

Add the vanilla essence.

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in a bowl and add to the mix in stages.

Looking like pretty good brownie batter to me - I could almost dive in there with a spoon !

Dollop generous tablespoonfuls on a greased baking sheet. (I had enough for three batches.) Pierre giggled and said they looked like piles of dog poo !

Bake in the oven for 11 minutes - do not overcook or you won't get that lovely squidgy brownie texture. The outside is slightly crunchy but the inside is superbly gooey and soft. Leave to cool on a wire rack completely or they will stick together.

My intial thought was to reduce the quantities by half because it sounded like a lot of sugar and butter, but don't bother - they will disappear so fast that you'll just have to make more if you reduce the quantities. I think these are the most delicious homemade cookies I have ever made, especially still warm from the oven. The kids have already asked me if I can make some more when they've all gone !

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! *** 

Fancy trying out some other US recipes? How about American Southern Fried Chicken with Wedges & Coleslaw, Hoppin' John & Collards (South Carolina), Mac & Cheese with Spinach and Bacon, New York Baked Cheesecake, Parmesan Chicken and Reuben Sandwich ?