snow day sweets

 Above: About an hour an a half into the storm; Top: Our front door the morning after; Bottom: The afternoon after, view from our 2nd story window

So you might have heard of a small blizzard that recently hit the Midwest...namely, Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Living and working in said 'burbs often prompts the occasional 'snow day' during the winter months. Even the Chicago Public Schools got a snow day...and that never happens.

Naturally, on said snow days, people look to activities that can be enjoyed indoors (or activities that require freshly fallen snow -- however, even the ski hills were closed!). For the hubs, the best activity would be playing video games. For me, that would be baking. So I awoke that blissful morning and examined my pantry.

I was thinking brownies, but then I was craving cookies, and then I thought, I swear I've seen these together before, like a "brownkie" if you will. So I did some googling, and found a few recipes. Finally I decided a brownie base with some cookie dough was what I wanted.
As the snow began to slow, my oven was preheating, and I prepared the following:

Brownkie Dough
adapted from several sources

Ingredients

For Brownie Base:
1 cup butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Cover baking pan with foil. [I used a 12x17 inch jelly roll pan as I wanted to make thinner brownies and have more pieces.] Spray with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350F.

Melt 2 sticks of butter in a medium saucepan; add cocoa, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool. Transfer to mixing bowl. Add sugar, salt, eggs, and vanilla. Beat slowly until combined. Add flour and baking powder. Mix well. Spread batter into pan. Bake for 25 minutes. Allow brownies to cool completely before layering the cookie dough.

For Cookie Dough:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup malted milk powder or crushed Whoppers
1 cup milk chocolate chips

In a mixing bowl, combine butter, sugars, milk and vanilla. Beat until combined. Add flour and malted milk powder until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips. Spread evenly over cooled brownie layer.

For Hard Chocolate Topping:
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon shortening

Melt together and stir until smooth. Spread evenly over cookie dough layer.

I wanted to cut these into cute little shapes, but the brownies were a little deeper than my cookie cutters. I let the brownies harden in my outdoor fridge/freezer, a.k.a. my garage in the winter; this way they're a little easier to cut. I packaged these babies up and brought them in as a treat for my students when we came back after the blizzard.

Although they were bummed that we didn't get a five-day weekend, like other schools in the area, they were very happy to get the sweets. These had a perfect balance of brownie and cookie dough. I must admit I kept the edges for myself, and then packaged some up for my family too. Goodies for all! Gotta love snow days ;)