What are pillow cookies might you ask? No, it is not some kinky sex lingo that you’d find on Craiglist’s casual encounters section. It’s a different type of raunchiness where your culinary boner will pop out uncontrollably at the sight of this decadent dessert.
A brownie baked inside of a chocolate chip cookie, genius! But what would the locals think? If Argies love brownies, and they love cookies, then by the laws of mathematics they must love pillow cookies, right?! Not necessarily. With my confidence lowered after a cheesecake brownie fiasco, it was questionable what the popular opinion would be. It still mind boggles me how a delicious marble cheesecake brownie is considered “too sweet, too rich, una bomba” but a party favorite of grocery store cookies, whipped cream, and a tub of sickly sweet dulce de leche is considered an Argentine classic (I am referring to the infamous chocotorta). So what was the verdict? The batch was scarfed down before I conducted an Argie taste test session. Whoops. But the second batch of salted dulce de leche brownie pillow cookies were quite the hit.
The recipe is so easy to make, just a few simple buttery steps to follow. I cheated with the brownies and bought a pre-made box, decent product overall, but next time I will make my own from scratch (complete recipe below).
Bake the brownies, make the cookie dough, chill in the fridge and put it all together. The most important part is chilling the cookie dough – if it’s too warm, the brownies won’t fit in nicely. Grab a big chunk of cookie dough, place the brownie in the center, and wrap the dough around to create a ball, enclosing the brownie in the dough. Baked for about 10-15 minutes or until golden brown, I prefer mine underbaked because I like the soft chewy texture kinda cookies. I also like my cookies not baked at all and am waiting for the day when my cookie dough eating habits will give me a violent case salmonella.
And listo, pillowy morsels of deliciousness… crack these bad boys open, hellllooo brownie!
These cookies made me so happy, I sang in rejoice listening to a song from one of my all-time favorite movies, Troop Beverly Hills.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJhchLeR1X0&w=480&h=390]
Brownie Pillow Sugar Cookies Recipe (Adapted from Bakerella & Linda McClure)
Ingredients
- 1 package Brownie Mix (+ ingredients on the package) OR bake the “best-ever” brownies
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup softened butter
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Unsweetened chocolate bar, chopped (I used Aguila chocolate amargo)
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Bake the brownies according to the directions on the box, cut into 1 inch squares and set aside.
3. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
4. In another large bowl, mix together softened butter and sugar until smooth (you don’t need any electric mixers – I did this one by hand!). Beat in the egg and vanilla. Gradually, blend the dry ingredients, 1/2 cup of flour at a time. Make sure it’s well mixed.
5. Chop the chocolate into chunk and mix into the cookie dough. Cover with plastic and put in the fridge for at least one hour to chill – you want to work with cool dough because warmish dough becomes messy and unruly.
6. With a big spoon, take a handful of cookie dough and place on a cookie sheet (ideally with parchment paper, but who really has that?). Press a piece of brownie to the center and gently work the remaining dough around the brownie, shaping it in your hand to make a ball-ish formation.
7. Bake for about 10 – 15 minutes until golden brown.
Frank Almeida says
Aha! You caught on to some of the things I run into myself. Yeah, I don´t have any love for the chocotorta. I mostly see it at kids birthday parties so I don´t think it´s all that with the adults I hang around with either.
Even though I love dulce de leche I also think that other torta that goes around (brownie covered with dulce de leche and whipped cream) sits kind of heavy after eating one. However, I found out that if you use nutella instead of ddl it doesn´t feal as heavy and the flavors are so complementary.
Anyway, your cookies look and sound wonderful.
Katie says
I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I ever read the phrase “culinary boner” on a blog. Ha! These cookies do look awesome though. Since I’ve never been known to pass at either a brownie or a chocolate chip cookie, I’m pretty sure I’ll be making these.
And for the record, Argentine brownies are horrible dry, chalky things that I wouldn’t serve my worst enemy. When I made a real (moist, chewy) brownie for some of my Argentine friends, I think they had might have had one of those aforementioned culinary boners.
Paul Strobl says
You had me at brownie…