Espresso Chip Cookie Dough Bars

A few weeks back, my mom and I went on a bakery tour in Austin when I was there for the BlogHer Food conference. One of the bakeries I went to was called Delish and they had a fabulous millionaire bar. The bar consisted of a shortbread crust layered with cookie dough, caramel and chocolate. As soon as I tasted it, I knew I wanted to make my own version at home. I had a few leftover boxes of Walkers Shortbread Cookies so it was the perfect opportunity to try something.

My version of the “millionaire bar” has a shortbread crust, made with a mixture of Walkers Shortbread cookies, and is layered with espresso chip cookie dough then topped with an espresso infused chocolate ganache.

Deep-Fried Cookie Dough

I would like to dedicate this post to Hayley from The Domestic Rebel and Sarah from The CandiQuik blog. Thanks to those two ladies, I was introduced to Torchy’s Tacos in Austin, Texas. Besides having some amazing tacos, they also have deep-fried cookie dough. Having a limited experience will deep-fried desserts, I was overcome with joy as I bit into the soft chocolaty center. Their deep-fried cookie dough was crisp on the outside and soft in the middle with melted chocolate chips. I set out to recreate this deep fried deliciousness at home.

Besides being a little messy, this was pretty fun. Plus, it gave us an excuse to make homemade chicken fingers with the deep fryer (Thanks Jef!). I had some helpers with my deep fried dough and we had a great time. Edible cookie dough is kind of amazing. I coated my cookie dough with a mixture of egg, pancake mix and crushed corn flakes. The corn flakes give the outside a crunchy layer without dominating the cookie dough flavor. I happened to use a deep fryer for mine, but you could do this with a Dutch oven on the stovetop as well. Start by preparing the cookie dough.

Cookie Dough Muddy Buddies

What do you call this? Puppy chow or Muddie buddies? I grew up calling it puppy chow but for lack of confusion; let’s just go with muddy buddies. What I remember from my teenage years is that muddy buddies were THEE sleepover snack. I mean what teenager doesn’t want melted chocolate covered in powdered sugar? What I love about the modern day muddy buddies is all the new variations of it.

Lately I have seen so many creative muddy buddy recipes that I decided I needed to revisit my childhood snack and put a modern day spin on it. So, I took my second favorite sleepover snack, cookie dough, and combined it with Chex mix cereal, melted chocolate, cookie butter and powdered sugar to make Cookie Dough Muddy Buddies. I proceeded to eat half of the bag, by myself and curl up with a chick flick, I wasn’t looking to share.