Snickers Bar Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Clay turned sixteen on Saturday. Sixteen. I remember sixteen. I was in Evarts, already six feet tall, already thinking about the mines, already eating everything Betty put in front of me and asking for more. Sixteen in Harlan County in 1984 meant you were a year away from working — legally, anyway; plenty of boys were already working under the table — and you spent your summers in the creek or on the football field or helping your daddy with whatever needed doing, which was always something.

Clay's sixteen is different from my sixteen. His sixteen has a phone and a car — well, a truck, Earl's old Ford Ranger that I've kept running through stubbornness and duct tape and YouTube repair videos. His sixteen has air conditioning and fast food and a school that has a computer lab. My sixteen had a potbelly stove and a garden and a school that had asbestos. Different worlds. Same age. I look at Clay and I see myself and I don't see myself at the same time, which is the basic paradox of fatherhood.

For his birthday, I took him to get his driver's license. He passed on the first try — parallel parking and all, which I still can't do reliably at forty-eight. The DMV photo makes him look like a convict, which is apparently the aesthetic that sixteen-year-old boys prefer. He held that license in his hands like it was the deed to a gold mine, and I gave him the keys to the Ranger and watched him drive away — slowly, carefully, checking his mirrors three times — and felt something leave my chest that I can't name. Not grief, exactly. More like the physical sensation of your child becoming a person who doesn't need you to drive them places anymore. It's a good thing. It feels like a bad thing. It's a good thing.

Connie made chocolate cake — from scratch this time, not a box, because turning sixteen deserves real cake. Connie's chocolate cake: two cups flour, two cups sugar, a cup of cocoa powder, two eggs, a cup of buttermilk, a cup of hot coffee, half cup of vegetable oil, two teaspoons of baking soda, a teaspoon of vanilla. Mix it all together — the batter will be thin, almost like chocolate milk. Pour it into two greased and floured cake pans and bake at 350 for thirty minutes. The coffee doesn't make it taste like coffee. It deepens the chocolate flavor into something dark and rich and adult. Frosting is butter, cocoa, powdered sugar, and milk, beaten until it's creamy.

Clay ate two slices, then drove the Ranger to his buddy Tyler's house, which is four blocks away but might as well be the moon given the look of freedom on his face. Connie and I sat in the kitchen with the leftover cake between us and she said "He's going to leave us, you know." Not now. Not soon. But eventually. They all leave. Travis already did. Amber's halfway gone. Clay will be next. And then it'll be just us in this house with a cast iron skillet and a mortgage and each other.

"That'll do," I said. She smiled. It was enough.

Connie’s chocolate cake was the centerpiece, and it always will be — but I’ll be honest, after Clay drove off in the Ranger and we sat there with that quiet kitchen and that bittersweet feeling sitting between us like a third guest, I kept thinking about the kind of dessert that matches a day like this one: something that looks simple on the outside but has something unexpected right in the middle, something a little richer and more complicated than it first appears. These Snickers Bar Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies are exactly that. Clay would’ve eaten six of them if we’d had them on the table, and honestly, so would I.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 1 hr (includes freezing) | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
24 fun-size Snickers bars, unwrapped and frozen at least 30 minutes

Instructions

Freeze the Snickers. Unwrap 24 fun-size Snickers bars, place them on a parchment-lined plate or small baking sheet, and freeze for at least 30 minutes. Frozen bars are essential — they hold together when you wrap dough around them and won’t melt into the cookie during baking.
Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together on medium speed for 2–3 minutes until light and fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Combine wet and dry. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in two additions, mixing on low speed just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Fold in chocolate chips. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Wrap dough around Snickers. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of dough and flatten it slightly in your palm. Place one frozen Snickers bar in the center. Fold the dough up and around the bar, pinching the edges to seal completely. Roll into a smooth ball. Repeat with remaining dough and bars.
Bake. Place cookie balls about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 11–13 minutes, until the edges are set and golden and the tops look just barely done — they will continue to firm up as they cool on the pan.
Cool and serve. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm for the full gooey Snickers effect, or store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Snickers Bar Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies — The Kind of Sweet That Stays With You