7 Sensational Ideas That Take Chocolate Chip Cookies Out of the Ordinary

Good news, friend: We’ve got the excuse you don’t need to eat a chocolate chip cookie today. We’ve observed a ton of smart riffs on the classic (for which we have an excellent recipe) while surfing the internet, and we have our own ginormous, delicious, don’t-forget-the-ice-cream skillet cookie, to boot. Here are the chocolate chip cookies we think look particularly tasty.

1. S’Mores Cookies

Just look at them. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful in your life than s’mores cookies? We thought not. For anyone who doesn’t love graham crackers, or finds them too sandy or crumbly, these are the version of the classic campfire treat to try. Bring extra napkins, both because they’re wonderfully messy and because they’re so mouthwatering you’re probably already drooling.

2. Layer Cake

What’s better than one chocolate chip cookie? (Channels Cookie Monster): More chocolate chip cookies! This layer cake from Butternut Bakery is such a tall, elegant beauty. That’s a traditional vanilla buttercream you spy sandwiching the cookie layers together. And imagine this: A cake that bakes in the time it takes to bake cookies—10 to 12 minutes! Awesome.

3. Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie

Now you don’t need to choose between one, two or three cookies. Just cut yourself a slice, and move that knife over an inch to suit your level of hunger! Skillet cookies are just the thing to make when hosting or for a small party: People can help themselves and scoop ice cream on to the still-warm cookie, picking their portions. Best of all, the leftovers keep for up to five days.

4. Cookie Dough Cups With Cookie Frosting

“It’s always a battle between my obsession with cookie dough and my love for warm chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven,” writes Annalise of Completely Delicious. So she went for the best of both worlds: Fallen chocolate chip cookie “cups” with a scoop of cookie dough “frosting.” The frosting doesn’t have egg, so it’s safe to dig into, and the cups provide welcome bite and balance. Genius.

5. Tahini Mug Cake

Creamy, buttery, roundly nutty tahini mingled with chocolate is definitely having a moment. These mug cakes look divine, and showcase the combo in wise fashion. These take five minutes to make. You read that correctly. Even better, there’s no big bowl; you just whip up the mixture in a mug, and pop it in the microwave. So if you have one or two maniacal kids coveting cookies (or it’s just you), you’re moments from mug magic.

6. Vegan Peanut Butter

Peanut butter and chocolate: a classic combination. But these cookies are also vegan. They work especially well thanks to a combination of different sugars, and we love that Carrot & Crumb threw a handful of oats in there, too. (Thanks to fiber-packed oats and protein-packed peanut butter, these should keep you full for a little longer than your average cookie!)

7. Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies

If you’ve ever stood in the kitchen, hemming and hawing as to whether make cookies or brownies, know that you can make both. Pinch of Yum developed these cookie brownies, and they look good enough that we want to drop what we’re doing and run to the kitchen. The key to the low labor here is that this is a straight cookie dough recipe dolloped on to egg-oil-and-water boxed brownie mix. So you’re making one batter, in a sense; the boxed kind is such a snap it almost doesn’t count. These bake up extra gooey, with that best-of-both-worlds deliciousness that will make every day feel like Friday.