Tree Cookies: A Nature-Inspired Dessert

Recently I've been lucky enough to be designing some really cool natural playgrounds at work. Natural playgrounds include spaces made from nature, like tree stumps, stepping stones, land forms/earthwork, etc...

Something I really love about one of my current projects is that it includes tree cookies (source for pic) . A tree cookie is a slice of a tree stump that is placed in the ground and used as a paver. As I was thinking about these for my project, I started wondering about the best way to make an actual tree cookie dessert.

So I went to the store and ended up with a couple packages of cookie mix (sugar cookies and chocolate cookies), some Nutella, and a bag of mini Oreos. [Note: It is important to hide the Oreos if you're not making the cookies right away or someone, like, I dunno, your boyfriend, may try to eat them.]

I mixed up the sugar cookie batter, and then, putting some flour down first, I rolled the dough out flat (as you might do for cookie cutter cookies) and made it into the shape of a square. Next I spread a thin layer of Nutella over the top. Then, starting at one end of the square, I rolled the dough, ending up with a cylinder shape of cookie dough (with the Nutella forming a darker spiral in the middle - this represents the tree rings that tell you how old a tree is). Then I put it in the freezer.

Next I made the chocolate batter. Once the sugar cookie batter was solid enough, I brought it back out of the freezer and cut it like a log. I then put them on the cookie sheet. Around the outside edges of these I put little chunks of the dark batter, so that they would form an abnormal kind of edge, much like tree bark.

Once the cookies were done baking, I put a thin layer of Nutella on the edges, and then rolled them in mashed-up Oreo crumbs as a final touch to represent the bark of the tree. I think they turned out pretty alright! If I do it again I would like to experiment with getting skinnier tree rings in the middle somehow.