Monday 30 April 2012

Cookie Recipe :)

Well, it's certainly been a long time since I posted. A ton of things happened, including moving house (twice!) and a degree.... so you could say I've been kind of busy!

What I've come here to share with you is the best cookie recipe ever.

It's my own recipe, adapted and modified from various other recipes to find one that works every.single.time. It's not too fussy either and doesn't require an exact amount of ingredients or something difficult to source.

I'm not bragging- it's just an indication of how long I spend working on these things!

What you need is:

250g self raising flour
170g butter
150g brown sugar (I'd recommend dark brown soft, but realistically I've made these when I'd run out of that and used demerara or muscovado sugar)
150g caster sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 egg
Chocolate chopped into rough pieces. You can use literally as much as you want here depending on how chocolatey you want them. I usually use 300-400g

Method:

1.Melt the butter either in a pan over the hob or the microwave. Either works fine, just try not to boil it in the microwave! Give it quick blasts (10-15 seconds) with stirs in between.

2. Add the sugars and mix into a paste.

3. Add the egg and vanilla extract.

4. Sift the flour in gradually, giving it a good mix in between so all the ingredients come together.

5. Let to sit for 10-15 minutes. I do not recommend putting it in the fridge as this can make the melted butter congeal and go, quite frankly, a bit gross.
After it's been left to sit the consistency should be thicker than cake mixture but not as stiff as roll-out cookies. If this is the case proceed to step 6, if not add water or flour depending on the consistency and leave to sit again.

6. Fold in (that is to lightly mix) your roughly chopped pieces of chocolate.

7. Line your baking tray with greaseproof paper and place one heaped tablespoon of mixture on the tray per cookie. Do not pat down! This will make the cookie go flat and squishy- not the nice chewy cookies we're after!
Allow plenty of space between the cookies- they are going to spread a lot. On an average sized baking tray you'll probably fit 3-4 cookies.

8. Place in the middle of the oven for 15-20 minutes. Usually everyone says to pre-heat the oven, which you are welcome to do, but I've never found completely necessary
Your cookies will feel soft and squidgy even when they're cooked. Take them out after 20 minutes even if they still feel squidgy (unless they're particularly monstrous!) because as they cool they'll harden up. If they're hard when they're warm they'll be rocks when they're cool!
If they still don't seem cooked to you once they've cooled then feel free to pop them back in the oven, but I've never had to leave them in for longer than 20 minutes.

The great thing about these cookies is they're great when they're warm, fantastic once they've cooled and just perfect the following morning. They'll usually last up to 3 days- you can still eat them after that but they tend to lose that brilliant texture and just taste a bit 'off'

Hopefully I can get some photos up soon, but if you do use this recipe feel free to send pictures of your cookies in!

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