A Cobbler Topped with COOKIES (Cue Singing Angels)

What in heaven's name is a cookie cobbler, you're wondering? Well, swap out the biscuit dough that normally cobbles a cobbler's top with cookie dough, and there you have it: cookie-top cobbler.

In this case, that craggy crust is a tribute to the best cookies I had all year: Andrea Bemis' Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. Their texture is the ideal amalgam of crispy and soft—a defined crust with visible veins of tenderness—but it is their underlying flavor that makes them true winners.

To begin, you melt the butter with a heap of fresh mint. (Melted butter makes for denser, chewier cookies; melted butter also means no waiting for dang butter to soften!) The butter turns amber while the mint releases its fragrance and flavor. When the cookies come out of the oven, they have all the toastiness of brown butter, but with an herbal aroma that makes them particularly apt for pairing with spring and summer fruit.

Here, those are strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. Because strawberries are the most watery of the group, roast them ahead of time so that the moisture they release will reduce into a sweet syrup.

Gently fold the other berries into the strawberries, then scatter pinches of the chilled cookie dough over top and stick the baking dish back in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cookie chunks have melted and merged into stepping stones all across the bubbling fruit below. You'll have a superlative cookie cake hiding a layer of sticky berry compote.

A few optional add-ins: I swapped the chocolate chips for white chocolate chips, which are simultaneously sweeter and subtler than chocolate chocolate chips. They're also practically invisible in the cookie dough, which makes for pockets of milky softness where you're least expecting them. One of my colleagues told me that I was a "very subtle white chocolate user" (okay, maybe she said "sneaky"). I took this to be a compliment. You can leave out of the white chocolate (or go back to regular chocolate), if you'd like. I also added a few sprigs of fresh mint when I roasted the strawberries so that not only the cookie dough, but the fruit, too, would be herb-infused.

You could use entirely frozen berries, but in that case, you'd want to cook all the berries together before adding any cookie dough. And they may need some extra time in the oven, as well as 1 or 1 1/2 teaspoons of cornstarch in order to thicken up.

I advise you double the cookie dough recipe and use half the yield to make the cobbler. Save the other half in your freezer and pull it out for whenever you want cookies that look like this:

What do you prefer: crisp, crumbles, cobblers, or another fruit dessert entirely? Tell us in the comments below!