Okay, so this recipe needs a little backstory.

My freshman year of college, I lived in a standard dorm with teensy-tiny rooms, communal bathrooms and one small, ill-stocked kitchen for all the residents to share. Since we were all on the meal plan, no one cooked too much, but being the OCD baker that I am, occasionally I’d use it make cookies or puppy chow when I was really stressed out. Ahhhh, sugar.


Well, for someone’s birthday, I decided to bake some frosted cookie dough brownies. I went and bought everything, then got back to the kitchen and realized it didn’t contain a single baking pan. So, I used the next best thing: a spaghetti pot. It worked great until it came time to remove the brownies from said pot, at which point it all crumbled into a messy, crumbly pile of cookie dough, brownies and frosting.

As my former roommate can attest to, I’m pretty sure I almost cried. When my baking experiments do not go as expected, I get slightly emotional. F*** my life, I thought. Things turned out okay, though- I ended up just irately slopping the crumbles onto a plate in a cake-shaped lump, then decorated it with M&Ms and frosting. And then, one of the most miraculous things I’ve ever eaten was born: FML brownies.

Since I’m meeting up with said college friends this weekend, I decided to bring a little bit of nostalgia to the gathering by whipping up another one of these. They’re completely idiot-proof to make…in fact, messing them up only makes them better. And you know what the best part of all this is?

They only require these three components. I love you, Betty Crocker.

FML Brownies


Ingredients:
  -  16 oz package brownie mix, plus necessary ingredients for baking
  -  16 oz tub of chocolate frosting
  -  16 oz prepackaged chocolate chip cookie dough

Begin by preheating your oven and preparing the brownie batter according to the package instructions.

Once you’ve poured your batter into a pan, roll pieces of cookie dough into various sized balls, then drop them into the brownie goo. They don’t have to be the same size or in any kind of order- have fun with it! Press the dough into the batter so that it’s not all at the top.

You might have some left over cookie dough. I’ll let you decide what to do with that.

Next, cook your brownies according to the package directions. Be careful not to let them burn- you want them to be slightly underbaked! The finished product will look like this:

Now, it’s time to have some fun. Allow the brownies to cool until they’re no longer burning hot (about 15 minutes), then use a fork to scrape them into a mixing bowl.

Add your container of frosting:

And go to town with a mixing spoon.

Be sure to stir the frosting in well, but leave some chunks of cookie dough and brownie. The difference in textures is what makes these really incredible.


Once everything is well combined, transfer everything back into the brownie pan and distribute the batter evenly.

Then, just pop ‘em into the freezer for a bit. Two hours or so later, you’ll have a ridiculously fudgy, rich, dense brownie…

Obviously, these are not health food. They’re probably as far from health food as you can possibly get. But they are absolutely incredible.

It’s like a cross between fudge, cookie dough and gooey brownies. It might be prettier to keep the three components separate, but believe me, combining them brings these to a whole new level of delicious.

You’re welcome :)

Cake like brownies or fudgy brownies? And boxed or from scratch?