Brownie Reese’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars – A Real Mouthful

I often get suggestions from friends and others for pins to try on the blog. This one for Brownie Reese’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars seemed easy enough, so I decided to give it a try. The photo on Pinterest looks like this:

 

I’m not entirely sure where the original recipe comes from, but the instructions are written right under the pin:

 

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Smoosh 1.5 squares of break-apart refrigerated cookie dough into the bottom of each well.
• Place Reese Cup upside down on top of cookie dough (or an oreo!).
• Top with prepared box brownie mix, filling 3/4 full.
• Bake for 18 minutes!

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I don’t have one of those square muffin pans, because every time I look at one in the store, I figure I won’t get enough use out of it, so I went with my regular round muffin tin, and in the interest of a quick clean-up, I lined each cup with a muffin liner. Also, because I wasn’t sure what effect the liner would have on the baking time versus just a straight metal pan, I did half with aluminum-lined liners. I really like these liners, by the way. They bake up really nicely, and there’s no “bleed through” like you might get with a regular paper liner. In the end though, baking time did not differ between the two.

Next, instead of refrigerated cookie dough, I made it from scratch, just based on the recipe that appeared on the chocolate chip bag.

This dough was pressed into the bottoms of the cups.

Next, I put miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on top of the dough,

and then I mixed up some Ghirardelli brownie mix

and poured it over the tops.

The tray went into the oven for 18 minutes, and came out looking pretty tasty. I couldn’t really test to see if they were done with a toothpick, because the whole thing was too gooey to accurately tell.

But they looked nice, once I pulled off the paper. Even though the middles had sort of fallen in a little bit, they were evenly baked and very moist.

Overall though, there was no distinct flavor. They were certainly very rich, but the fudginess sort of overpowered both the chocolate chip and the peanut butter tastes. Bottom line: Despite the simplicity, they’re not worth making unless you are hell-bent on developing Type 2 Diabetes.