Brookie Cookie with Ganache Topping

Lots of our free time for the past few years has been spent at the baseball field. First with Stephen, now Jake.  For the past week, we were in Arizona watching Jake play.  One hundred five to one hundred eleven.  

Every day. 

Yikes.  

Years ago, we used to spend our time watching Brooke at volleyball tournaments. We loved those volleyball years.  At school games her friends would chant "Broo-kie, Coo-kie" from the stands.  Jordan Michael Maxwell  (yes, always his full name- what Brooke called him when she was little), one of Brookie's friends since Kindergarten, asked her to a dance one time, using a giant cookie that said "Brookie Cookie, will you go to the dance with me?" 

It was her twenty first birthday a couple of weeks ago, so I made two treats for a little celebration in our Bountiful Kitchen. One was a Strawberry Cream Cake. Really beautiful. Really yummy. Brookie loves strawberry. Then, I decided to make a chocolate treat too.  I thought a giant chocolate cookie pressed into a spring form pan would be festive, especially with a ganache topping.  The strawberry dessert (that took a few hours to make start to finish) was WOW on the cake stand, but this dessert stole the show in taste. Almost everyone agreed it was the better of the two desserts.  Funny thing was, this took about 10 minutes to mix together for both the cookie and ganache, then cooking and cooling time. It was one of those:  "I have to have that recipe" type of desserts. 

That's one special cookie. 

Brookies Giant Chocolate Birthday Cookie with Ganache
A Bountiful Kitchen
print recipe

1 cup butter, unsalted, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/3 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

Ganache Topping:
8  oz bittersweet chocolate (2- 4 oz bars) broken into pieces
1 oz semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
For cookie:
Cream butter and sugars. Add vanilla and eggs, mix until fluffy. Add all dry ingredients at once, mixing just until wet and dry ingredients are incorporated. Fold in nuts. Don't over mix. Spoon into a lightly greased 10-inch spring form pan. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, just until set, and a few moist crumbs are attached to a toothpick when inserted in center. Remove from oven and cool for about 30 minutes.

For ganache:
In a heavy pan on stove, bring whipping cream to a boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate pieces. Whisk until smooth.

Remove "cookie"  from springform  and set on serving plate. Pour ganache over the top and let sit for at least an hour until it hardens. You may set the dessert in the fridge to speed up the process.
Slice into wedges and serve.

Tips:
-This is my basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, altered a bit. I added walnuts and omitted the chocolate chips.  If you want to add a cup or two of chocolate chips, go ahead, no alterations needed. Add the chocolate chips at the same time as the flour, so the pieces won't sink to the bottom of the dessert.
-We froze the leftovers ( yes, we had leftovers, cause I made another cake on the same day). I sliced it into wedges, and wrapped the pieces in wax paper. Then I took all of the pieces and placed in a large Ziploc bag. The pieces thaw in a few minutes at room temp. Perfect for a chocolate fix :)
-You can also spread this into a 9x13 pan and cut into bars.

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