Half and Half Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I get a chocolate craving the first thing I wish I had were chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven. Chocolate chip cookies have really been done to death, so when you have a favorite recipe you tend to stick with it. Everyone has one they think is “the best”, as do I, but playing around with said recipe can sometimes create something with an entirely new dimension. That’s what happened on this particular chocolate chip cookie baking day.

There I was, minding my own business putzing around on Pinterest when I saw these. That pin originated from a recipe for brown butter double fudge chocolate chip cookie dough cookies (phew!) on the blog How Sweet It Is.

I loved the concept of the stacked cookie dough, but since I already have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, I decided to get my inspiration from her idea and use my own recipe instead.

So to make this work, I measured out all the ingredients for my cookie dough. After whisking together the dry ingredients I weighed them out. Then I separated the dry ingredients into two batches. Next I followed the instructions for beating the butter, brown sugar etc, then weighed that out as well and separated it into two batches. I stirred together one batch of the dry ingredients with one batch of the wet ingredients, then added half of the chocolate chips.

For the second half of the dough I added 1/4 cup of cocoa to the remaining dry ingredients and whisked it together. Then I combined the wet ingredients with the dry to make the chocolate dough, finally adding the remaining chocolate chips. Assembly was the only thing left. Using a cookie scoop, I stacked one scoop of regular dough and one scoop of chocolate dough, end to end, and placed them on an insulated cookie sheet.

Speaking of insulated cookie sheets… see the photo at the top? Those cookies were made on a regular cookie sheet, see how they flattened out and became a bit crisp on the edges? The photo below that shows cookies baked from the same batch of dough, same oven, same temperature and same amount of time, but those were baked on insulated baking sheets. Makes a big difference! The ones on the insulated sheet are soft and chewy and did not flatten out.

If you have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, simply add 1/4 cup cocoa to it. That’s it. Just remember, add all your dry ingredients together first, separate into two equal batches, then add the cocoa to one of them. Simple! Oh, and delicious!