Chocolate chip cookies (aka ‘angry cookies’)

This recipe comes from an American site, so I had to convert the recipe from cups and sticks to grams. The cookies are delicious – I prefer the taste of these ones to the Felicity Cloake one I tried last week, but I prefer the texture of hers. Next time, I'm going to try chilling the dough before cooking them. I got lots - about 30 cookies - from this lot. 

Chocolate chip cookies aka "angry cookies"

220g butter

300g brown sugar

2 eggs

A little vanilla flavouring

320g flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

400g chocolate (this was for very chocolately cookies. Next time I might try 350g. Might. You could also substitute some of the chocolate for nuts)

Put the oven onto 170°.

Beat the butter and the sugar together until they are light and fluffy – this takes about five minutes. Mix in the eggs and the vanilla and beat them into the eggy sugary mixture to combine. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients.

The only chocolate chips I could find were for sale in little glass jars, like the jars of cake decorations, and they were about €3.50 each, so I bought a 400g bar of chocolate, broke it into a plastic bag and bashed it with a rolling pin to get really large chunks. Hence the moniker ‘angry cookies’.

Fold the chunks through the mixture.

I went ahead and cooked the cookies at this stage and they melted and spread all over the place – I had to re-cut most of them when they were cooked, so next time I would take a tip from the Felicity Cloake school of chocolate chip cookie baking and chill the mixture for a while before baking.

Cookie dough

So, either chill your mixture first and then drop spoonfuls onto a baking tray and bake for 12-15 mins or drop spoonfuls onto your baking tray and then chill (I guess an hour or so would be enough to harden the mixture up) and then bake for 12-15 mins.

Leave to cool on the tray for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling. Scoff immediately on their own or with ice cream. 

Chocolate chip cookies

I’ve had chocolate chip cookies on my to-cook-wish-list for a while now. The first recipe I wanted to try is an American one, but what really puts me off making them is (deep breath) American measurements, or cups (update - I since made them - see here for more). Since then, I saw this recipe in Felicity Cloakes column in the Guardian. I tried them last night, and Hubs comment was “hmm, these are really good!” while nodding appreciatively. And they are – light, crunchy, crumbly, and most importantly, they have a really satisfying bite to them – they make a really good “thunk” noise when you bite them.  So, thanks to Ms Cloake for having done all the hard work. I got 20 cookies from this.

120g of soft, salted butter

75g brown sugar

75g sugar

a drop of vanilla extract

1 egg

240g plain flour

½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

170g dark chocolate chunks

In a food mixer, mix the butter and sugars until combined. Add the vanilla extract and the egg and mix again until the egg is incorporated into the sugary buttery mix.

Sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda and stir in using a metal spoon. Fold in the chocolate pieces and combine.

At this stage, the recipe states to chill the mixture for 24 hours. Hmm, I wanted a quick sugary fix so I chilled them while I got on with the dinner. Also, I had the oven on and I didn’t want to fire up the oven the next day just to bake some cookies.

Raw chocolate chip cookie dough. Yuuuuuum. 

The oven was already up at 180°, so after about an hour in the fridge, I removed the dough mixture (which, by the way, is delicious raw – I had to stop myself from helping myself to a spoonful every time I passed it). The dough should be a little solid at this stage. Take spoonfuls of it and put onto two baking sheets, spacing them well apart (the biscuits will spread when they cook).

Bake for 15 minutes, until golden. Remove and leave on the trays for about five minutes before popping them onto a wire tray. They were still warm by the time dessert time rolled around, and deliciously melty, leading to satisfyingly grubby fingers and faces. I’m expecting the rest will be wolfed down for the gouter – if they survive that long – I’ve spotted a couple of pairs of eyes ogling the biscuit tin. I might have to find a better hiding place for them!