Deep Dish Cookie Recipe

Valentine’s Day can be overrated. I mean, it’s a “Hallmark holiday” where prices for dinner or flowers skyrocket and reservations are nearly impossible to secure. Kevin and I have created a tradition of cooking an elaborate dinner at home to celebrate the occasion – an easy way to save money and stress.

Kev is most definitely the King of the kitchen, always blowing me away with the delectable dishes he creates, but I am Betty Crocker 2.0. I have always loved baking, especially cookies – it’s like my therapy. A few years ago I wanted to surprise Kev on Valentine’s Day with a yummy dessert that went above and beyond your average chocolate chip cookie. (Don’t get me wrong, he loves my cookies, but I wanted to do something extra special.) So I decided to take a stab at making my own “pizookie”, or as others may call it, “deep dish cookie”. I am both pleased and shocked to report that I nailed it on my very first try! But let’s give credit where credit is due: this is my mom’s cookie recipe – I just transformed it into deep dish cookies.

To impress anyone with a dessert that looks, smells, and tastes amazing, but really doesn’t require much effort, look no further! The best thing about this recipe is you can freeze the cookie dough and use for regular cookies or pizookies another time! Because I don’t want to spend my Valentine’s Day cleaning up the kitchen, I typically make the dough a day or two ahead of time, and just place pre-scooped, frozen dough into the ramekin when it’s time to cook this delicious dessert.

This dough recipe serves about 3 to 4 dozen cookies, and you can assume 3-4 cookies per pizookie. Hey, I’m an English teacher – you do the math. Ha! But if your loved one is anything like mine, they’ll be asking for seconds and stealing bites out of yours, despite the generous portion.

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1-2 bags chocolate chips (my preference is 1 to 1.5)
Chopped walnuts (optional)

Instructions:
Heat oven to 350.
First, mix butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla together. Mix well.
Then mix in remaining ingredients.
*I usually add one cup of flour at a time to ensure it’s well mixed.

Scoop dough into scoops (I use an ice cream scooper) and place about 3 cookie dough scoops into each ramekin. If you are doing it with fresh, room temperature dough, press down and make flat.
If you’ve frozen the scoops beforehand and are using frozen dough, place in ramekin and after about 5-10 min of cooking, flatten with a spoon.

Cook at 350 for 20 min. With fresh dough, I start checking them at 15. With frozen dough, it usually takes 25.
The key is to have the outer rim browned, with the top center just barely golden brown. They will continue to cook for a bit once taken out of the oven. I always think undercooked is better than overcooked.
Let cool for a few minutes before topping with ice cream.
ENJOY!

*If you just want to make normal cookies, cook at 375 for 8-10 min. You can use the same sized scoops.

One time I placed a heart-shaped Reeses candy in the center while the cookies baked. While it turned out perfect, I decided it was way too sweet, and these treats are better served with vanilla bean ice cream on top.

If you try out this recipe, let me know! I love being tagged in all of your photos on Instagram/IG stories, or feel free to share a photo/comment below. I hope you enjoy!

All is fair in love, war, and pretending calories don’t count on holidays,