super bowl - football shaped neiman marcus cookies - don't tell anyone my little secret

I had about half a batch of the Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie left in my fridge from my last week. My boyfriend has been asking me for days to bake him the rest of the cookies, but I've been refusing. I wanted to try something new- something I wouldn't do with his sacred Cook's Illustrated cookies. I wanted to make cut out chocolate chip cookies for the Super Bowl. I knew it would be hard because these cookies spread so much while baking and the chocolate chips melt and form funky shapes. The best way to go about this would probably be to bake a huge single cookie, and cut out shapes while it's still warm.


My thoughts were that these would almost come out like blondies, because basically blondies are like chocolate chip cookie bars.


I had a hard time deciding when to take these out of the oven. The corners were already crisping up while the center still was raw gooey center. I knew I was overbaking these, but there was nothing I could do about it because I knew damn well I couldn't give my boyfriend raw cookie dough.


So as long as i avoided the outer edges (which were very crispy) I was able to cut out shapes with my football cookie cutters.


I decorated them with the same frosting I used for the Football Shaped Brown Sugar Cookies. (And you know I had to throw in a little something for my boyfriend- his old number #68)


I'm being quite honest here but these didn't turn out so good. They were really overbaked and crispy (which my boyfriend and I are not a fan of). Needless to say, with so many other goodies on the table during the Super Bowl, these were left alone.


I decided to try my little trick I have with overbaked cookies- placing a damp papertowel over it and microwaving it for about 20 seconds. As you can see, the cookies melted right back to the perfect state. (This is my little secret- I don't tell anyone, because then I wouldn't be able to have all these delicious gooey cookies for myself.)

---RECIPE---

See the recipe for the Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie.

See the recipe for the cream cheese icing.