There’s nothing quite like a perfect, freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. The slight crisp on the bottom, breaking it in half to reveal melty chocolate chips, and the warm and sweet flavors blending together when you take a bite. Oh, and a hint of sea salt takes it over the top for some of us. I love them fresh out of the oven, given a few minutes to cool slightly, and then I go total-Cookie-Monster on the batch. #noregrets

But what if you are looking to do other things with your chocolate chip cookie dough? It’s a question few have ever asked question before. Ever since we launched our organic and grain-free chocolate chip cookie dough, we’ve been asking ourselves this question and have come up with seven fun things to make with cookie dough.

For the longest time, I’ve watched Rachael DeVaux (@RachaelsGoodEats on IG) make some unbelievable copycat Twix Bars. They look amazing every time she posts them, and I came to realize that I needed to try making them. So yesterday we made our own version, but it happened in a roundabout way. At first, I thought about making chocolate chip cookies in the shape of a bar, and then dipping the top half in chocolate. I still might do that anyway. But then Hayley said I should make Twix bars with a caramel layer. And that was the real lightning bolt idea for this recipe. So I guess it wasn’t really my idea to make these 😉 But I’m glad Hayley told me I should make them!

To start off, this recipe uses a chocolate chip cookie base instead of a shortbread base. Thank me later! We call for our own chocolate chip cookie dough, but you can make a cookie layer from scratch. Either is fine!

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The first batch was a bit of a failure. I didn’t use a candy thermometer to measure the peak temperature of my caramel and it was too soft. And then I covered the entire batch with a layer of chocolate that was too thick. So when I went to cut it, even though it was frozen, the chocolate shattered and the caramel smooshed out under it. Not a good result.

(These tasted great, but the presentation was a failure)

For the next batch, I leaned on science, and used a candy thermometer to get more accurate with the caramel. I took the caramel to firm ball stage, though I think you could take it even higher to hard ball or soft crack. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you might want to get one for this recipe so that you can be exacting with your caramel, too.

Pop the whole thing in the freezer and let it get really cold and frozen. This will make cutting it a lot easier, which sounds counter-intuitive, but trust me.

Hayley suggested cutting into bars before covering in chocolate, and it was a great idea. The result was exactly what we were hoping for! We finished the bars off by spooning melted and slightly warm chocolate onto the bars, then spreading it with a small brush. And in the moment before the chocolate solidified, we sprinkled some of our Kosher Flake Salt onto them (coming soon!)

We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did. It was really nice spending some time in the kitchen together, and collaborating on this devilishly indulgent recipe. Keep them in the freezer for best results, and keep them out of sight so they don’t disappear too quickly. 🙂