Slutty Brownies and College Baking
Adapted from http://www.thelondoner.me/

Ingredients:

• 1 pack chocolate chip cookie mix
• 1 pack brownie mix
• 1-2 packs of Oreos (depending on how many you intend to eat in the process)
• 2 eggs*
• ¼ cup vegetable oil*
• ¼ cup water*
• 1 stick of butter*

*these are the amounts based on the brands of mixes I had, they may vary from brand to brand.

It’s about 6:30 at night, and I just finished my dinner of Caprisun and dinosaur chicken nuggets. No, I’m not four, I’m 18, but one of the things I quickly learned when I came to college was that the four-year-old diet is nothing to be ashamed of when you’re working with very little money and even less kitchen availability. Now, dinosaurs for dinner is something I can handle, but when I realized that giving up a fully stocked kitchen also meant giving up the freedom to bake whenever I wanted, I was not willing to go down without a fight. That’s why, when I found The Londoner’s recipe for “slutty brownies” I was pretty excited; it couldn’t have been simpler! Even with my limited resources and budget, this was something I could do. Everything it called for was inexpensive, and I didn’t need to use anything fancier than a cake pan in the process. Not to mention, these brownies looked absolutely incredible, how can you go wrong with a warm combination of chocolate chips, Oreo cookies, and gooey brownies? This is definitely a recipe I plan to share in the future.

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° and find a 9x13 baking pan.**
2. Next, in a medium bowl, or whatever sized bowl you have on hand, prepare the chocolate chip cookie dough according to the directions on the package, mix it like crazy until you have a really gooey dough. It might help to add a little bit more oil than the package calls for.
3. Once you dough is sufficiently mixed, press the it into the bottom of the pan. Make sure the bottom of your pan is completely covered, it will probably be a thin layer.
4. Then cover the cookie dough layer in a layer of Oreos and set the pan aside. It is very important to only use the perfect cookies for this step, eat the broken ones.
5. Wash your medium bowl
6. Prepare the brownie mix exactly as it says to on the box.
7. Pour the brownie mix on top of the Oreo layer
8. Put your pan in the oven and find something to distract yourself for about 30 minutes while the magic happens.
9. Take your brownies out of the oven and try to restrain yourself from diving right in, things straight out of the oven tend to be hot.
10. Once they have cooled, you can decide to either cut them into nice, civilized squares; or you can grab a couple spoons and dig in.

Tips:

·       ** If you’re like me and you live on a college campus, or are even living on a college budget, good luck with the pan. I opted for a $2 aluminum pan from Safeway. It didn’t survive the night, but it worked perfectly for one batch.

·       This was my first experience with dry cookie mix, and I was a little puzzled by it at first, it just didn’t want to mix. At home I would have used a wooden spoon, but college doesn’t have wooden spoons, so I had to get creative. My first instinct was to use a hand mixer because we happened to have one of those, but all that did was chop everything into little bits and whip it around a little. Not effective. Next I grabbed a regular dinner spoon because it seemed to be the next best option, but it was simply too small and I was afraid I was going to break it. I finally opted for just using my hands and this seemed to work great, even if it was messy.

·       If you want to cut them into neat little squares at the end, I suggest lining your pan with parchment paper. The removal process will be much less painful and your end product will probably be a lot prettier.

Even if you’re baking in a closet with an oven crammed inside, this is one recipe you will happily be able to make again and again, not to mention, I’m sure the sugar rush will do wonders for you once finals week rolls around. With simple ingredients and very few tools necessary, this truly is the perfect recipe for the college baker!