This edition of Leftover Night is dedicated to desserts, all of which incorporate chocolate because we are irredeemable chocoholics. First up, we have The Chewy, from Alton Brown’s chocolate chip cookie episode. Yes, I tried another one. We found this recipe pretty disappointing, unfortunately. While it was “soft-baked” after the fashion of a store-bought Chips-Ahoy cookie, that really isn’t what I think of as chewy—I prefer the denser chewiness of a cookie that is full of brown sugar and slightly underbaked. But the real problem we had with these cookies was the amount of salt called for. We didn’t notice it too much when they were fresh from the oven, but by the next day, they tasted so salty as to be nearly inedible. I won’t be using this recipe again, but if you try it, I would highly recommend easing back on the salt levels.

Next up we have the chipster-topped brownies in Baking: From My Home to Yours. These baked up nice and thick, but were sort of unremarkable warm from the oven, which surprised me a little. I really couldn’t even taste the chocolate-chip cookie topping until they had cooled. Don’t get me wrong, these were very tasty, moist, decadent brownies; I’m just not sure they were worth the extra effort and dirty dishes involved in the cookie layer.

Finally, we have millionaire’s shortbread, which tastes just like a caramel Twix bar. These are a little messy to slice and eat, but absolutely delicious. I made mine with half AP and half rice flour for that extra crispness, and my caramel was homemade dulce de leche. Shortbread isn’t Jeremy’s favorite, but he liked these a lot too, so they go in the permanent recipe file.