Like every month, we have a birthday party at work. I asked the birthday girls what they wanted and they said chocolate (good girls!). I looked through mixingbowl.com to see if I could find a double chocolate something or other recipe. In the process, I came across a chocolate chip cookie cake recipe with M&M's on top. Sounds delicious, right? So I decided to give it a whirl.
After mixing up the dough and preparing the pan, I started to smoosh the dough into the pan. As I did this, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this is a lot of dough for this pan. Maybe I should leave some out." But did I do that? No, of course not. I got it all in and popped it in the oven, ready for cookie bliss 14 minutes later.
About 6 minutes in, I begin to hear sizzling. I turn and look, and see a small flame in the bottom of the oven. I'm not a big fan of fire in any situation outside of a fireplace or roasting marshmallows, so this freaked me out. I shut the oven off and called home, only to receive no answer. I pulled the cookie out of the oven and blew on the flame, hoping to put it out. It died a little, so after waiting a minute I threw some water on it and out it went.
With that crisis averted, I turned to my half-baked cookie. I scraped off what was overflowing and thought, "Well what do I do now? The party is tomorrow and I'm gone all evening and I have no more chocolate chips." So, I stuck it back in the oven and turned it on again. It went another 5 minutes or so, then started overflowing again. Luckily, this time nothing caught fire. I pulled it out again, scraped again, and stuck it back in again a little later, turning on the oven one last time. Smoke started billowing with a minute left, so I decided that was the end of it. Fortunately, the cookie was done. I must say, if you're going to spill something cookie dough is a good one, it cleans up pretty easily.
With that ordeal done, I wondered how it would taste. I've never had a thrice-baked cookie, so I was unsure how the girls would take to it. Look at the picture below to see what they thought about it.
Here's the recipe. Now maybe this person used a deep-dish pizza pan or something, but for future reference, cookie dough grows so don't stick it all in one flat round baking pan.
Confetti Topped Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
Ingredients:
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 "heaping" cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
Regular or "mini-sized" multi-colored M & M's
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a large, round pizza pan OR a large cookie sheet with sides (mine measures 17.5 x 12 inches) with cooking spray; set aside.
2. Cream together the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar (I used my stand mixer, but you can use a hand-held one). Add the eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition.
3. In a separate bowl, put the flour, baking soda and salt and mix together thoroughly.
4. Add the flour to the creamed mixture, mixing thoroughly to incorporate. Add the vanilla extract and mix thoroughly.
5. Fold in the chocolate chips and the chopped nuts, stirring to combine.
6. Put the cookie dough on the prepared pizza pan or cookie sheet; using the back of a large spoon, spread the dough evenly on the pan. Sprinkle top of dough with M & M's...more or less to your own liking!
7. Bake in the center of the oven until edges are browned; the center wll still look UNCOOKED but take it out anyway. The pizza size should take about 20 minutes (a little thicker than cookie sheet) and my large cookie sheet took only about 12 minutes.
KEEP AN EYE ON IT SO YOU DON'T OVERCOOK IT... YOU WANT THIS NICE AND SOFT AND OOEY, GOOEY!!!
8. Set on cooling rack until almost completed cooled; cut pizza pan in wedges or cookie sheet into squares of size desired.
