Vintage Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm not sure what exactly makes these 'vintage'? According to the BBC Good Food website this is a 'retro' recipe (whatever that means!) Maybe they're meant to take you back to your childhood when enjoyed with a glass of milk? Anyway, they are yummy and definitely hit the the chocolately, sugary spot.  It has been a busy week at work (with another busy one coming up) so I decided I need to bake something to say thank you to my colleagues for their enthusiasm towards the maths week I organised but to also keep us going through the forthcoming busy days. I had said I would make Cadbury's Creme Egg brownies but with the sunshine today I felt something lighter was in order so decided to make this BBC Good Food recipe.

The bonus of this recipe is that it only needs one bowl and can be rustled up pretty quickly. The recipe makes approximately 20 soft and yummy cookies (depending on size).

Ingredients:

150g salted butter (softened)
80g light brown muscovado sugar
80g granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
225g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
200g plain chocolate chips or chunks

Method:
1) Preheat your oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
2) Put the butter and sugars in a large bowl and beat until creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract and egg.

3) Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt over the mixture and mix in with a wooden spoon. Add the chocolate chips and stir well.

4) Using a teaspoon, place small mounds of the mixture well apart on the baking trays.

5) Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until light brown on the edges and still slightly soft in the centre.

6) Leave on the tray for a couple of minutes to firm up and then transfer to a cooling rack.

7) Enjoy! (With a glass of milk or hot drink of your choice!)

Christmas Is Coming Part 2 - Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

As promised another cranberry based cookie recipe. These cookies are packed full of Christmas flavour. Cinnamon - check. Cranberries - check. Chocolate - check. I made these last year and they were well received so decided to give them another go. The recipe is from the blog 'What Megan's Making' which I am a fan of. You can find the recipe here. It is an American recipe so you will need some cups for measuring out the ingredients. It also gave me an opportunity to try out my new cookbook stand that I picked up in TK Maxx this week.

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons (approx. 140g) unsalted butter (room temperature)
1/2 sugar (I used golden caster sugar)
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar (I used light brown soft sugar)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup oats
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh or frozen cranberries
2 ounces white chocolate chopped (for drizzling)

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
2) In a medium sized bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

3) In a large bowl beat together the butter and both sugars until smooth. Then beat in the egg and vanilla.

4) Add the flour mixture and oats and stir until blended (This will take some time and is a good work out for your arms!)

5) Stir in the chocolate chips and the cranberries.

6) Drop about a tablespoon of the mixture onto your prepared sheets leaving spaces for the cookies to spread.

7) Bake until the edges are light brown for about 15 minutes.
8) Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
9) Melt the chopped white chocolate in a bowl over a barely simmering pan of water. Then drizzle the melted white chocolate over the cookies.

10) Enjoy with your favourite festive drink :-)

Double Chocolate Shortbreads

Now these are supposedly meant to be shortbreads...however I would disagree. The texture is more of a crumbly biscuit rather than a buttery, moreish shortbread. They are perfectly tasty (although perhaps lacking in depth of flavour) and the perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee while catching up with a friend (as I discovered today when I managed to scoff three of them - oops!) but do not embark upon making them thinking that you will create traditional shortbread.

I made these as I was visiting one of my friends who is allergic to egg - shortbread seemed to be the perfect option. I considered lemon, chocolate chip and espresso choc chip but found this BBC Good Food recipe which seemed easy enough to whip up quickly this morning. I managed to make 20 biscuits from the mixture.

Ingredients

175g butter (softened)
85g golden caster sugar
200g plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
100g chocolate chips (milk or dark - I used 100g of dark chocolate that I chopped into small bits)

Method
1) Mix the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon. Stir in the flour and cocoa, followed by the chocolate chips (you might need to mix it together with your hands at this stage - I didn't).

2) Halve the dough and roll each piece into a log about 5cm thick. Wrap in cling film and chill for 1 hour or for several days (It can be frozen for up to 1 month).

3) Heat the oven to 180C/160C/Gas 4. Slice the logs into 1cm-thick rounds, transfer to a baking tray lined with baking parchment and bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on the tray.

Happy baking!

Chocolate Chip Cookies - Take Two

You may be wondering why I am writing about chocolate chip cookies again? Well, I am someone who likes to try different recipes even if I have found one that already works perfectly well. Today I decided to try Jo Wheatley's recipe for chocolate chip cookies that feature in her 'A Passion for Baking Book'. They are different to the Hummingbird Bakery ones I have made recently - although this isn't a bad thing. I can't describe exactly how they are different other than I think they have a more biscuity texture rather than a cookie (although this may be down to me getting the sugar quantities horrifically wrong and if I'm being really truthful probably baking them for a couple of minutes too much). They will be winging their way to our friends Emma and John, who have just become parents for the first time to the gorgeous Leo. I thought they might need some sugar and chocolate!

I managed to make 14 cookies (although as you will read later this is probably because I mistakenly upped the amount of demerara sugar by nearly double the amount - oops!)

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter (softened)
200g light soft brown sugar
125g demerara sugar
2 large eggs (beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
salt (a pinch of)
200g dark chocolate (roughly chopped)

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line 4 baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
2) Put the butter and sugars in a large bowl and mix (using an electric handwhisk - alternatively use a freestanding electric mixer) until light and fluffy (this is where I mistakenly added 200g of demerara sugar rather than 125g - oops! It didn't seem to have too much of an ill effect.)

Whisk until pale, light and fluffy

3) Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well between each addition and scraping any unmixed ingredients from the side with a rubber spatula. Add the vanilla extract and mix on the lowest speed until combined.
4) Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt into the bowl and mix again until thoroughly combined.

Add the dry ingredients 

5) Roughly chop the chocolate into chunks and fold into the cookie dough.

Fold the chopped chocolate into the cookie dough

 6) Scoop the dough into even-sized mounds. Place 3-4 cookies on each baking tray, allowing space between them to spread during cooking.

7) Bake the batches in batches on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for about 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and sharply bang the baking trays on the work surface to deflate the cookies, then return to the oven for a further 10 minutes until pale golden brown.
8) Allow the cookies to cool on the baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks until cold.
9) Enjoy with a drink of your choice (alternatively I think they'd be delicious served warm with ice cream!)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Teachers around Great Britain are rejoicing - why? It's the holidays! That makes me happy as it means more time for baking! One of my bestest friends Rachael has just had a gorgeous baby boy so I thought the family may be in need of some sugary, chocolaty goodness to keep them all going so I decided chocolate chip cookies were most definitely needed!

This is a Hummingbird Bakery recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. It's the same book that the oat and raisin cookies that I've previously featured come from. This recipe makes 24 cookies.

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
350g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extact
400g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
225g dark chocolate (roughly chopped)

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line 4 baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
2) Put the butter and sugars in a large bowl and mix (using an electric handwhisk - alternatively use a freestanding electric mixer) until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping any unmixed ingredients from the side with a rubber spatula. Add the vanilla extract and mix on the lowest speed until combined.

3) Add the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda and mix well until a smooth dough is formed.

4) Roughly chop the chocolate and stir into the dough mixture until it is evenly dispersed.

5) Arrange six equal amounts of cookie dough onto each prepared baking tray. Make sure that there is enough space for the cookies to spread while baking.

6) Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes until the cookies are golden brown around the edges (the recipe states 10 minutes but I actually found mine needed 15). Leave the cookies to cool slightly on the trays before transferring the cookies on the greaseproof paper to a wire cooling rack to cool completely (A word of warning - do not try removing the cookies from the paper until they have completely cooled as otherwise melted chocolate chunks and large amounts of cookies will come away with the paper too!)
7) Enjoy your soft and chewy cookie with the drink of your choice (as I am doing now whilst writing this!)

Happy baking!