get ready! gut bomb coming at ya

I felt so refreshed and good about my refocus on my dieting after eating the lemon bars that I thought I could be a little diet dangerous today. I stumbled across an easy recipe on Bakerella's website. It combines two of my favorite things- brownies and chocolate chip cookies.

I love chocolate chip cookies. They are like syrup to my soul. A warm blanket out of the dryer, a hug from your mama.
But brownies... they are my kryptonite. My personal downfall and totally my achilles heel. We have a true love/hate relationship because I can never EVER get the recipe just right. I love to bake them because even when they don't come out right, the crumbles are still delicious. But I get incredibly frustrated as I try to cut into the pan and realize the top is crackly, but the bottom is runny. It is seriously my constant battle.

This recipe from Bakerella uses a boxed brownie mix (gasp, I know, I know) but I figure for a first run recipe, I'm OK w/ using the mix to see how it all goes down. And I figure the brownies will set up properly because it's a box dangit and they just better!

I'm not putting pictures up of me mixing a BOX MIX of brownies. You know what it looks like. So, lets fast forward to where I got creative.
I made a chocolate ganache! yuuu-uum

whipping cream and almost a full stick of butter... melt....

a bag of semi sweet chocolate chips waiting to be smothered


douse the chips w/ the creamy butter mixture and let it sit for about 20 seconds


then stir until it is all combined


take the pan of brownies and chocolate chip cookies out of the oven (after about 40 minutes of baking in a 9x13 pan)


and while it is still hot, dump the ganache over the brownies and evenly spread it around



and then, let it sit. and sit... and sit until the ganache sets up. You have to wait AT LEAST an hour. If you can manage let it sit for a couple of hours because the ganache will still be runny. THEN you can cut into it. and the ganache will still run down the sides a little but, but it just adds to the perfect bite.

so... there was some craziness that went down in my house today and I got too.... distracted shall we say, to take a picture of the brownies cut up. But, they looked WONDERFUL and tasted even better.

Do yourself a favor and whip these up. If you use ALL boxed ingredients, this will get done in no time and you can just use frosting out of a can to put on top and everyone will love you just the same. Do it now I say and you will not regret it.