Cookie Bowl Mayhem, Take 2

We've all seen these. In fact, we've seen these on our blog before, but we have had quite a few submissions of this project since then...so I bring you (imagine fanfare music and cymbals) Cookie Bowl Mayhem, part 2. 

The Original Pin

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Sugar-Cookie-Bowls

This has been pinned by so many people with the caption "Mold cookie dough to up-side-down muffin tin and, Viola! Cookie bowls!" 

Well...captions on Pinterest pins don't always tell the whole story behind a pin (which they shouldn't...that's what the awesome link of the picture is for) and so people follow the caption rather than clicking through to the link and this is what they end up with:

The Pinstrosities

"My sweet boyfriend tried to surprise me after a long day or school and work by preparing a wonderful dinner and dessert.  When I came home, the house was filled with smoke and his face sagged with disappointed.  He reluctantly pulled out his rendition of the cookie bowls he bravely attempted from Pinterest.  When we finally scrapped the last of the crispy chunks off of cupcake pan, we were able to eat the cookies...not filled with ice cream, but in crumbly chunks.  It's the thought that counts, right? One day, when we work up the bravery, we may reattempt this fail.  For now, we're still trying to use the ice pick to chip the burnt cookie off of our oven." -Staci

"My boyfriend saw this on Pinterest and just KNEW he could do it!! Well, he didn't.. lol.. He is blaming me because I told him to use Pam to help with it sticking.. I forgot it was a non stick pan we were already using =) Also, I think maybe because we used pre-made cookie dough instead of making it ourselves.."  -Somer

"My father LOVES ice cream. So for Father's day I decided to make him some really nice ice cream cups I had pinned.  Easy right? It was going to be my first pinterest project! Well I am not known for my cooking skills, and this epic failure didn't help. See attached photo. 
Things that went wrong - 1. My Dad's girlfriend is gluten free, thus I used a rice flour combo. Apparently this type of flour makes things more runny. 2. I should actually have read the recipe instead of just following the instructions. Apparently it is not just a simple cookie recipe. Whoops.
Needless to say there was melted dough all over the bottom of my oven which started to burn (again, I am not a good cook and didn't think to check the oven often) and smoke filled the kitchen. My two year old had just gone down for a nap so I ran around the house like a mad woman trying to open windows (Wisconsin winter!) and start fans so that the smoke alarms wouldn't go off and wake up my daughter. Then what do you do? Pull the dripping, hot pan out of the oven and get it all over everything else? So I took a cookie pan and tried to slide it under the muffin tin, which made it spill and smoke more. I ended up having to wash muffin tins, cookie sheets, my stove top, the floor, oven mitts, my hands and arms, and racks, door, and bottom of the entire oven. 
Nice job, eh?" -Elise

-rslillis

-Lelia

"I posted this on my FB last night after my attempt to cook this. A friend told me about your site and said I should share this. So here it is ;) it was still YUMMY!" -Steven and Alison

"My friend Maureen and I attempted to make these awesome looking Cookie Bowls by spreading cookie dough over the flip side of a muffin pan (here is the link http://coleensrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/05/cookie-bowls.html). We were super excited, so we didn't bother with using the cookie dough recipe recommended on the pin, and instead we used pre-made cookie dough from the grocery store. I think that was our first mistake. We spread the cookies over aluminum foil on the muffin pan and they looked great (see first attachment). We did not, however, use non-stick aluminum foil or grease our foil in any way. That was mistake number 2. We put them in the oven and anxiously waited for the timer to go off while simultaneously drooling over the ice cream we had just bought to put in the cookie bowls. We were pretty surprised when we opened the oven (see second attachment). We freaked out, upset that we hadn't followed the recipe exactly. We let them cool and pried them apart from the foil. They tasted great, but we had a hard time getting the cookie bowls off of the foil. When we did succeed, the bowls fell apart and were pretty useless. The mangled cookie bits went great with our ice cream though!" -Samantha

"My gf and I attempted at making these "easy to make" cookie bowls.....well you can see how it turned out haha." -Jason

Not what they were after at all. Do you remember from last time what the issue was? 

The type of dough. Too many people see the original pin assume you can just plop any chocolate chip cookie dough on the pan and have those beautiful cookie bowl ice cream cups. Well....not quite.  You need to have a stiff dough. Regular chocolate chip cookie dough will NOT work as it spreads way too much while cooking. A great dough to use for this is sugar cookie dough. If you follow the link to the original site they have a dough recipe right there for you. What throws people off though is that it is a sugar cookie recipe...not a chocolate chip cookie recipe, and they see chocolate chip cookie bowls. 

For these to work you MUST have a stiff dough, a dough you can roll out and cut with a cookie cutter. Regular Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is just too sticky for that. But if you want chocolate chip cookie bowls what do you do? There is a modified recipe here: http://coleensrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/05/cookie-bowls.html, or you can do what I do and just add chocolate chips to the sugar cookie dough!  It works great. I know because I've tried it a few times now. Here's what I do:

• I mix up the dough from the original site (not my favorite sugar cookie recipe, but it's the recipe that works the best with this I've found), following all the directions. Don't just throw in all the ingredients at once...add them as the directions say. You will end up with a better result if you follow the directions. I made it the first time and just added everything all at once and missed the "Add flour mixture to butter mixture, 1 cup at a time" part and threw in all the flour and there was too much...only I didn't have any more eggs to help add moisture so I ended up adding more butter and some mayo to help get the consistency right.
• Roll the dough out. I put between 1/4 and 1/2 a cup of flour on the counter (or table) and then roll the dough out. 

• You need to roll the dough out to about 1/8". I never have a ruler handy, so I use my finger as a measuring device...this is about how thick I roll it out. 

• Next I pull out my chocolate chips. I never think to buy mini ones, which would work better for this, so I have to modify my full size chips. 

• I use my ulu knife (just because it's easy...but any knife will work) to chop up the chips into smaller pieces. 

• Next I sprinkle the chopped bits onto the rolled dough, and then I roll the rolling pin over the dough once to press the chips into the dough. I then use a jar lid to cut out my circle. 

• Spray your muffin pan with cooking spray (mine's just about empty...so it doesn't mist anymore, rather is spits it out instead...as you can see in the picture below) and then drape your dough over the muffin tin, placing the top of the dough (the side you pressed the chocolate into) face down on the pan. I don't ever press the dough to the pan, it forms just fine as it cooks.

Ignore the loveliness that is my Pam spit upon pan...I need a new can of Pam. And...I'm not one to throw away a pan that still cooks fine, even if it is stained and not brand new looking (which grosses people out as I've learned from some ever so pleasant comments...I think they missed my misconceptions post, oh well...I can safely say I probably won't ever have to cook for them). 

• And then bake until done! I got excited about the cookie bowl and pulled it out and ate it...realizing as I was swallowing the last tasty morsel that I didn't take a picture. But...it looked like the last picture I posted up (only with smaller chocolate chunks)...so here's what your finished bowl will generally look like:

So it really does work...you just have to use the right dough. I have never tried using the store bought sugar cookie dough...it seems like it'd be too sticky, but maybe not. Anyone tried that?