Cookie Brittle

I think it is pretty clear that I have a horrible case of an overactive sweet tooth. Dessert of some sort after dinner (and sometimes even lunch) is pretty much the standard in our house. So, you'd think that I would have kept better tabs on the amount of brown sugar in the pantry. I used the last of it up and forgot to write it down on the grocery list.

In order to follow the rule of only going to the grocery store once a week, I knew that if I wanted some dessert I was going to have to find a recipe to suit the ingredients I had on hand. This proved to be more difficult than I first thought. Most of the recipes that didn't have brown sugar in them also contained one random key ingredient I didn't have either.

A search from my binder of printed recipes yielded a big goose egg, so I headed over to my computer to examine the insanely long "recipe to do list." As luck would have it, I found Chocolate chip cookie brittle from Piece of Cake. I actually prefer making bars over cookies. It's not that I prefer eating cookies over bars. That is definitely not the case as I love them both equally. Bars are so much less fussy. You scoop them out once and bake one pan. Yeah, I really am that lazy. Cookie brittle is definitely the lazy baker's dessert.

Man was this stuff ever addicting. One might even say "cracktastic." When I eat a regular chocolate chip cookie, I can usually stop at 2. Alright...3. But with these little cookie bits I kept wanting more and more and more until I have to put them on the highest shelf in the pantry to stop myself. (Yes reaching up to the highest shelf in the pantry is too much work for the 12th piece of cookie brittle. Do not attempt this technique after having only had 3 pieces of brittle. The highest shelf is not enough of a deterrent! I've found putting something out of reach only works after you've had a ridiculous amount.)

Aside from being delishious and highly addictive, the recipe is one that can be easily altered to suit your needs and tastes. I did not have a full cup of dark chocolate chips. (I didn't even have any semi-sweet chips either!) So I used a scant 1/2 c of dark chips and a scant 1/2 c butterscotch chips. I also added 1/4c coconut. The author of the blog wrote that she thought this recipe would be tasty with butterscotch chips and coconut. I figured, since I already had to use the butterscotch chips, why not not toss in some coconut too. Also I used salted cashews since those were the cashews I had in my freezer.

I'd never had a cookie with cashews in it before. Mrblocko loves cashews, but thought it would be weird. He worried that it would taste weird and I would have wasted the precious cashews. Nope. The flavors blended together in face-stuffing goodness.

One final note about this recipe: if you want the brittle to be in jagged pieces, follow the recipe's instructions to break the cookie up after it has cooled completely. If you want more uniform pieces, cut the bar once the cookies have just barely set up. A pizza wheel works brilliantly.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle from Piece of Cake
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsalted roasted cashews
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (60% cacao–I like Ghiradelli)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and set a rack to the center position. Pour the melted butter into a large bowl, and stir in the vanilla. With a wooden spoon (or your hands, if your prefer), add the sugar, salt and flour and mix to combine–the mixture will be somewhat crumbly, like a moist pie dough. Stir in the nuts and chocolate chips. Press the mixture in a thin, even layer onto an ungreased cookie sheet (use the chocolate chips as your guide–try to get them in as close to a single layer as possible throughout the dough, and you’ll have the right thickness). You may not fill the entire sheet with the dough–that’s okay.

Bake for 23-25 minutes, until light golden brown (the edges will be a bit darker than the center). Let cool completely before breaking into whatever sized pieces you desire. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.