Chocolate Chip Cookies

The first chocolate chip cookies I ever made were from a recipe out of the Be-Ro book, and despite following the instructions to the letter, the taste was good but they always came out tough and closer to a biscuit in texture than a cookie. I’ve tried numerous recipes since then, getting closer and closer to cookie nirvana, and I’m pretty confident I’ve reached it with this recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook! The cookies had the perfect crackled top, were soft without crumbling and were gooey for days.

Ingredients:

225g unsalted butter
350g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
230g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

The Hummingbird Bakery recommends around 4 baking trays but it depends how big you want your cookies to be. I lined mine with the magical wonder that is baking parchment (I much prefer it to greaseproof paper) – I’ve never had anything stick to baking parchment and it’s so easy to use. Total wonder product.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius (325 degrees Fahrenheit), Gas 3.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This can be done by hand, but I always use a hand-held electric mixer or my Kitchen Aid! Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Slowly beat in the vanilla extract.

Add the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda and mix well until a smooth dough is formed. It shouldn’t be too stiff, and you should then be able to stir in the chopped chocolate easily. Make sure it’s evenly distributed!

Arrange blobs of the cookie dough onto the baking trays, making sure you leave large gaps between them as they will explode in size in the oven. Bake them for around 10 minutes or until they are golden brown around the edges and flat in shape.

Leave them to cool on the trays for a few minutes before turning them out onto a wire cooling rack.

They should be soft and chewy if done correctly. The hard part is trying to resist them while they’re still warm (although no-one will judge you if a few disappear…)!

These worked so well mostly due to the chopped chocolate. I normally use chocolate drops or chunks, but I loved how the chopped chocolate melted inside the cookie, remaining so even when cool. The dark chocolate was quite bitter, so if you’re not a fan of it, then milk or white would work too.

I’m looking forward to trying out variations of this recipe: I’m thinking peanut butter or raspberry and white chocolate… Anyone willing to be a taster?