After I made the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream a few weeks ago I decided it would be great if I could have some kind of cookie to go along with it. Chocolate was the obvious choice since it would pair well with the vanilla base of the ice cream. I looked around a bit and found this recipe for Chocolate Brownie Cookies over at Joy the Baker that seemed perfect. I love soft cookies, and cookies with the texture of a brownie seemed awesome. Well, the cookies didn’t come out as planned, but they were perfectly tasty anyway.

First the eggs and sugar are whisked together to form a smooth mixture.

To this, the melted butter and chocolate are added. This is probably where my problem lay. The recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate, but I had none. In more than one location I found the instructions to substitute 1 ounce of unsweetened plus 1 tablespoon of sugar for 1 ounce of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate. I went ahead with this, but a few sites also vaguely mentioned that the ounce-to-ounce ratio would not be equal, or that you might have to adjust the fats as well. I can see how adding an entire half cup of sugar (what I had to add in the end) might change the consistency of the finished cookie.

Once all the ingredients have been added and thoroughly mixed together, the batter-like dough is refrigerated to make it easier to handle when scooping out onto baking sheets.

The recipe calls for them to be dished out by the tablespoonful. I don’t have one of those handy disher scoops, so I used a rounded two teaspoon scoop. I still managed to get plenty of dough on my hands, though.

They baked for 11 minutes, the time given in the recipe, and did not seem to have changed from their original state. I eventually left them in for about 18 minutes. They never really spread out, but they lost their glossy sheen and they cooked all the way through. They turned into tiny little brownie bites with a dark chocolate flavor, which makes a good pairing with the sweet vanilla ice cream. Sometimes things don’t turn out like expected, but they can still be delicious!

Brownie Cookie Bites (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

• 8 ounces unsweetened chocolate (chopped)
• 3 Tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoons salt

Directions

1. In a double boiler, or in the microwave, gently melt together the chocolate and butter. Stir till all the chocolate melts.
2. In a large, separate bowl, beat together the sugar and eggs till they’re thoroughly combined. Add the hot melted chocolate.
3. Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix well to combine. Refrigerate the batter like dough for at least 1 hour, to make it easier to handle.
4. Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets, three if you have them.
5. Drop the cookie dough by the tablespoonfuls (about the size of a small ping pong ball) onto the prepared baking sheets. You can place them pretty close together, because they won’t really spread.
6. Bake the cookies for 18 to 20 minutes, until their tops have lost their shine and a pin stuck in comes out clean. Wait 5 minutes then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.