Easy Brownie Cookie Sandwiches: raspberries, white chocolate, and the miracle of SONG.

Yum

I’m supposed to say “Brownie Cookie Sandwiches” in my first sentence for search engine purposes, so there you go. These have fudgy brownie shells, tart raspberry jam, and smooth white chocolate buttercream, and they are 1000 percent worth the calories. They are also very easy. You need to make them immediately.

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Brownies in a minute, first some teacher ramblings…

This week has been the first week back to five-days-a-week, all-students-present instruction at my high school, and there are a lot of feels going around. Some observations, in no particular order:

1. When moved from 10 feet apart to 5 feet apart, my silent zombie students started, like, talking to each other. It was weird and wonderful. I got to scold them for talking while I was talking, and it was the highlight of my day.
2. Kids are much better at wearing masks correctly than adults. Shocker.
3. After two days in a row of school for the first time in a year, my high school kids looked a little like kindergarteners that needed a nap. Me too, guys.
4. I forgot what it feels like to hear a CHOIR, and getting to experience having all of my students back for the last eight weeks of the year might be the thing that gets me through this dumpster fire of an academic year.

More thoughts on pandemic teaching can be found here.

My freshmen….can sing?

One of the biggest challenges for me (and every other music educator I know) this year has been dealing with freshmen. Listen, freshmen are weird. They are deeply self-conscious in a way that is difficult to describe to someone that doesn’t work with that age group, and they are in this strange in-between age where they really want to be grown up and also really want their mom to make everything ok. I honestly really like working with this age group, because if you can quickly get to know them they can be really fun and satisfying.

At the beginning of the year, I had to seat them all ten feet away from each other in a classroom they had never been in, told them they weren’t allowed to do anything or go anywhere because of the Rona, and asked them to sing out nice and loud for me, even though they hadn’t developed a relationship with me at all yet and they couldn’t hear anyone but themselves and me. (I’m freakishly and vocal-fold-damagingly loud.) After setting up these challenges, I had to scramble to develop some sort of rapport with them seeing them for 45 minutes twice a week.

Yeah. The struggle was very very real.

HOWEVER, this week I doubled their numbers, and suddenly…there was singing. I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it, but I heard actual human voices.

We might make it through the pandemic after all, guys.

One of my seniors totally hit the nail on the head when they heard me describing how much I was looking forward to getting all the kids back in the building. “She feels good when we’re successful.” …yes. That’s it exactly. Also, I have not felt good at my job all year, even though I know objectively I have some skills as a teacher. No one is good at this this year. No one.

Brownie Cookie Sandwiches: the elements.

I have become increasingly focused on Pinterest, (follow me!! please!!) and brownie cookies are super trendy right now. I went through a period of aimless scrolling where I was confronted with picture after picture of crinkly tops, moist fudgy centers, and creamy fillings, and I knew I had to make some.

Note: I used a cookie scooper thingy to get these all to come out the same size. This is an inexpensive and useful tool you might want to acquire.

I knew I wanted something a little different in the middle to contrast with the intense sweetness of the brownie, and I knew I needed a flavor that could pack a punch to compete with CHOCOLATE, which is such a flavor powerhouse. After a little thought, I settled on raspberry, and did a little research on homemade jam. I don’t know why I’ve never realized this before but jam is just….fruit and sugar. It’s so easy, why have I been buying that smuckers business? This isn’t the kind that you can jar and keep forever, though, so don’t do that. Eat it immediately on your desserts and waffles and toast.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of making homemade jam or don’t have a thermometer, that smuckers stuff is also good. You do you.

I also wanted to do a white chocolate element, so a buttercream seemed logical. I will now be using this buttercream for everything. It is so creamy and smooth!

I seriously considered doing a cream cheese frosting for these, and I still think that would be really good (someone try it and let me know!), but I knew I would be sharing these with my work-church buddies. My bestie Katie says she “doesn’t like cream cheese.” I’m not sure exactly what that means, and obviously she’s completely wrong because cream cheese is a perfect food, but I love her and I wanted her to like these. She loves chocolate and also deserves nice things, so. White chocolate won.

Shoutout to my fellow Northminster Presbyterian musicians. You all are the best taste-testers. Some bakers like to pretend that we bake just for fun and because we like creating. I like to bake for those reasons. But I also like to hear, “This is really good!” Everyone’s got an ego, come on.

Anyway.

Make these brownie cookie sandwiches. You will not regret it.