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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
This is one of the times when two great tastes really do taste great together! Brownies and cookies are a match made in heaven, and they come together to create a tender, sweet, and chocolatey dessert! Whether you have them hot with a scoop of ice cream, or cold and fudgy from the fridge, I’m sure you’ll love these brookies!
Looking for other festive baking ideas? Check out my Christmas Crack for an absolutely addictive sweet and salty treat! Or you can really wow friends and family with my Retro Betty Crocker Candy Cane Cookies for a little extra holiday cheer!
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: These brookies are easy to make and come together with pantry staples you’re sure to have on hand.
- Total Time: You can have a pan of brookies ready with 15 minutes of prep and 35 minutes of baking time.
- Variations: You can add toasted chopped walnuts or pecans to the brownie batter for a little added extra crunch and texture! You can also reverse the order of the layers by putting brownie batter on the bottom and scooping dollops of cookie dough over top—just know that your end product won’t have the fun and clearly defined layers of our version!
- Tools For This Recipe: You’ll need a 9×13 baking dish, an electric hand mixer (to make creaming butter and sugar together quick and painless), and a silicone spatula (for pressing down your cookie dough if you’d rather not use your hands) and offset spatula (to make spreading the brownie batter over the cookie dough easy) for this recipe.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Chocolate Chips: This recipe calls for the use of semi-sweet chocolate chips, which are great for recipes like this one because they don’t add much sugar to an already sweet recipe. Karlynn’s Tip: There’s nothing stopping you from trying a blend of white and milk chocolate chips, or milk and dark chocolate chips (we recommend a 70% dark chocolate) in this recipe! You could also use chocolate chunks if you want a cookie layer dotted through with bigger bites of chocolate!
Cocoa Powder: If you have it on hand for other baking, don’t use “Dutch processed” cocoa powder in this recipe! Dutch processed baking powder has had its acid content neutralized, and the baking soda in this batter needs the acidity of your regular, everyday cocoa powder to rise!
How to Make Brookies
This is a quick overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients & complete step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
- For Cookie Dough: Beat butter, brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla together in a bowl until creamy, then add egg and beat together for an additional 2 minutes until fully incorporated. In a second bowl, whisk together dry ingredients, then slowly incorporate into the butter mixture until combined. Add chocolate chips.
- Press your cookie dough evenly into the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Buttering your hands (or a silicone spatula) makes this step easy!
- For Brownie Batter: Beat together sugar, butter, and vanilla in a clean bowl; add eggs and beat well. Mix in cocoa powder until well-combined, then add flour, baking powder, and salt and mix until fully incorporated.
- Pour your brownie batter over the cookie layer and spread to cover completely.
Karlynn’s Tips for the Perfect Brookies
- Festive Fun: Transform your brookies into festive shapes using cookie cutters of your choice! Just keep in mind that if you use shapes with a lot of irregular edges—like, say, a Christmas tree—you’ll end up with a lot of extra cookie bits that will, sadly, be considered subject to the chef tax and be eaten on the spot. Tragic, we know.
- Texture Talk: Different ratios of brown and white sugar can produce vastly different textures in your cookies! Using more brown sugar tends to encourage a chewier texture, while more white sugar produces a more firm, crispy texture. Since this recipe has you make one big cookie layer and has a moist brownie batter baked over top, you won’t necessarily notice significant texture changes if you change up the ratios, but feel free to play around with this recipe to make whatever flavour profile you prefer!
Storage Instructions
In my mind, nothing beats a brookie fresh and warm out of the oven—except for maybe a fresh, warm slab of brookie with a scoop of ice cream on top! They’re also excellent chilled in the fridge for a fudgier bite!
Refrigerator: If you have extras left over (which we doubt you will), or you’re making your brookies ahead of time to bring with you to a potluck or bake sale, they can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.
Freezer: Unfortunately, unlike regular chocolate chip cookie dough, we don’t suggest you store unbaked brookies in the freezer. However, you can store fully cooled, sliced brookies in the freezer for up to 3 months in an airtight container. Thaw them overnight in the fridge to retain the best texture, then allow them to come up to room temperature or microwave them in 10 second increments to enjoy warm!
It’s not every day that you can have the best of both worlds, but these brookies make it easy! Try them out for your next get-together—or even as an easy but fancy-feeling offering for your next bake sale—and let us know how they turned out in the comments below!
Happy Baking!
Karlynn
More Delicious Cookie Recipes
- Our Cheesecake Filled White Chocolate Red Velvet Cookies give fancy café results with minimum effort using boxed cake mix!
- Looking for other options for holiday parties or bake sales? Why not try our Peppermint Kiss Chocolate Cookies?
- For a more autumnal flavour that pairs perfectly with coffee, try our Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Brookies
Ingredients
Cookie Layer
- ½ cup butter, room temperature
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Brownie Layer
- 1 cup white sugar
- ½ cup butter, Room Temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9×13-inch baking dish with parchment paper.
Cookie Layer
- Beat butter, brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl until creamy. Add egg; beat until light and creamy, about 2 minutes.
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Slowly stir flour mixture into butter mixture until dough is combined. Stir chocolate chips into the dough.
- Spread dough evenly into the prepared baking dish. It is easiest to butter your hands or a silicone spatula and press it flat in the bottom of the baking pan. Set aside.
Brownie Layer
- Beat together sugar, butter, and vanilla in a bowl; add eggs and beat well. Mix in cocoa powder until well-combined. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt until batter is combined.
- Pour over the cookie layer and spread to cover completely.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes.
- Cool completely before cutting into 20 bars.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Cindy says
Recipe looks amazing and easy! Question: I want to take these to work and looking at the 2x and 3x recipes, the pan size and baking times are the same as 1x.
Caroline says
Thank you for all your wonderful recipes. They are so easy to follow and true comfort food for families. They help us make good food without breaking the bank!