[Happy Birthday] Deep Dish Cookies

I have the most amazing friends!  We formed a friendship years and years ago when our children were tiny.  We had all just moved into a brand new neighborhood.  It was a magical time.  It has been so fun to all grow up together.  Some of these dear friends have moved away.  But thankfully not very far.  We still get together often and it is always so good for my soul!  We laugh and laugh and laugh.  And sometimes we cry.  I was thinking of all the things we have been through together and all the support that we have given each other.  We have been there for each other in childbirth and adoption and in the untimely death of loved ones.  We have nursed each other through illness and surgery and life-threatening car accidents.  We have hosted parties and put on neighborhood plays.  I have taught their children and they have taught mine.  We have survived summer camps and vacations with each other.  We have cooked and crafted together.  We have witnessed each others children graduate from elementary school and high school.  Our kids have rallied around each other.  They have played little league together and dated each other.  We've watched some of these little ones move onto college and get married.  Now they are starting to have children of their own.  I can't even begin to tell you how important these women are to me.  They are truly fantastic!! 

Today we had lunch.  It was delicious!!  We get together once a month for a luncheon.  And we celebrate birthdays while we are at it.  January happens to be a BIG birthday month.  I needed a gift and fast.  Actually I needed three gifts.

Are you a fan of the deep dish cookie??  If you haven't tried them, you are truly missing out.  It's basically a cookie that is baked in it's own little dish and served hot out of the oven with ice cream.  I don't know what it is, but there is something different and magical about that little dish.   It transforms that humble little lump of cookie dough into so much more.   And yet it is doesn't require anything extraordinary.  It is simplicity at its very best!

I decided to give my dear friends all of the essentials to make their own deep dish cookies at home.  This is what you will need to do: 

Step One:  Purchase some oven safe individual bowls.  I found these custard dishes at WalMart.  You can get four bowls for about $5.  Ramekins would work really well too.

Step Two:  Make your favorite cookie recipe.  Any recipe will do.  My family has experimented with snickerdoodle, chocolate chip, double chocolate, peanut butter, and oatmeal in the past.  All of them are equally amazing.  When I am making cookie dough at home, I usually use my cookie scoop and flash freeze the cookies in little balls on a cookie sheet in the freezer.  Then I bag them and have them on hand whenever I need them.  For my friends, I packaged my favorite homemade chocolate chip cookie dough in a carton container and tied it up with a bow.  (My five year old just learned to tie her shoes.  She wanted me to be sure to tell you that she tied all of the bows.  Didn't she do a great job?)

Step Three:  Write up the directions on how to bake your cookies.  If you preheat the bowls on a cookie sheet at the same time you are preheating your oven, the cookies won't take as long to bake.  When your oven is warm, just drop a scoop of cookie dough into each preheated bowl and bake as usual.  My chocolate chip cookies need to bake for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

Step Four:  Write a little birthday note.

Step Five:  If you want to be an extra-miler you could buy a container of ice cream to go with your cookies.  (Sorry ladies...I didn't think of that until just now)

Step Six:  Package everything up and deliver it with a big hug!