So today was the day that I became a total cliche. I was the mother at home with her baby, whom decided to make cookies for her husband to come home to. OK, so I'm not married but husband makes me sound more mature.
It was one of those days. Billy wasn't feeling the whole nap thing too much. We went for three walks, I didn't sit down all day, and it was just a long tiring day.
At some point or another I went to make a cup of tea and thought that I would love something sweet with it, but alas we didn't have anything. I actually, quite specifically, would have loved a gooey soft M&S cookie.
So I made one.
I did a bit of interneting and found a couple of recipes, but alas I didn't have any brown sugar. But all was not lost. One website claimed that omitting brown sugar was in fact the key to achieving the soft gooey texture of cookie that so many of us lust for.
I put Billy in to his little activity centre thingy and I knew he would be happy there for about ten minutes or so. Just enough time to weigh my ingredients and put together the mixture as he watched on in amazement. I've never actually made chocolate chip cookies before so I wasn't really expecting them to turn out.
But they did. Oh they turned out magnificent. They were literally the perfect consistency. Chewy, but not too chewy. Melt and gooey but not too moist. A bit of crunch on the outside. Not too much chocolate. I made the perfect cookie. And it was pure fluke.
I actually didn't even have chocolate chips, but I did have two Freddo bars and a handful of walnuts so I chopped up the Freddo bars in to tiny little pieces, somewhat resembling chocolate chips, and chopped the walnuts for a bit of texture too. What resulted was a thing of beauty. The perfect cookie dough. It would soon resemble a beautiful rubble after ten minutes in the oven. They weren't the best shape, but sure they were gorgeous, and I made them. Go me!
I snapped a few photos, with the obligatory wooden board which all pretentious food photos require. And the glass of milk. Let me tell you, I don't even drink milk. But this is the type of stuff I do when I get a little fifteen minute interlude from the craziness of a nap-deprived day. It was me that was deprived, not my son. My God do I need those naps to recharge the batteries. But that's another post in itself.
So here we have it. The recipe. I'm using the measurement of cups because that's what I used as per the different recipes I was going by. I could convert them to grams for you but I'm genuinely afraid that I'll get the measurements wrong. I just can't handle being the cause of a cookie fail situation.
Recipe
You will need - 1 and a bit cups of self raising flour (not quite a quarter, think half a quarter... an eight? Ah sure just douse in an extra little sprinkle), 1/2 cup of butter (that's soft), half a teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, 1 egg, pinch of salt, slightly less than half a cup of regular sugar and 1 cup of chocolate chips.
1. Preheat your oven to 190'C (Gas Mark 5). Cream together the softened butter and the sugar. Stir in the vanilla essence and the egg. Combine well.
2. In another bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet until a dough is formed.
4. Fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Use an ice-cream scoop or a large spoon to place about a tablespoon of the mixture on to a cookie sheet or grease proof paper on a baking sheet. This should give you about 10 cookies. Ensure there is a good amount of space between each cookie as they really expand and flatten.
6. Place in oven for 10-12 minutes or until they start to go golden and slightly toasted looking on top.
7. Remove from oven and allow to stand for about ten minutes. They will look slightly raw, but this is what you want. The resting time allows them to finish and reach perfect consistency.
8. Enjoy with a glass of milk. Or take a photo of your cookie with a glass of milk but really have it with a cup of tea.
Enjoy!
Confession
The cookies turned out fantastic. I was absolutely delighted with myself and so excited for my "hubby" to try one. I ate mine when they were hot, and before I put them on the wooden board for the fancy looking photos for this post.
Well. It didn't quite turn out how I planned.
I showed him the cookies. He said they looked incredible. He couldn't believe I made them. He said they smelled amazing too.
So we sat down, cup of tea in hand, and I eagerly awaited the reaction. But he was silent.
Speechless because they were so delicious? No.
Now, if there is one thing in the world that the Mr in my life hates, it's onions. See where I'm going with this?
His exact words - "I know you think I'm paranoid about things having onions in them, but tray I can taste onions".
"ONIONS? The COOKIES taste of onions?" I said, in horror. At this point I realised he was losing the plot, was in fact paranoid beyond belief (he really hates onions, gags when you're chopping them) and had completely ruined the whole situation. I had been SO excited for him to try them.
Him - "Do you want it?"
Me - "So you're being serious then? Really?"
Him - "Sorry Tray, I can seriously taste onions".
Me - *pissed off at this stage* "Yes I'll eat it, they're gorgeous".
Him - "Ah Tray don't be like that".
Me - *Silence*.... I take a bite... "Oh Jesus".
Him - "Onions?"
Me - "BLeeeeugh" *spits out cookie*.
Cue about ten minutes of laughter from the two of us. I've never been so relieved and disgusted in equal measure in all of my life. Relieved that he wasn't being dramatic, disgusted that I, in my sleep deprived state, had served the bloody cookies on the wrong chopping board. The one I had previously used to chop up some onion for our stew (in which the onion was slow cooked for many many hours to the point where said onion-fearing boyfriend would in fact believe that onions were not used in the dish".
Not my finest hour. But the cookie I had, pre onion-disaster, was AMAZING. I swear.
Labels: baking, cake, chocolate, cookies, cooking, Recipe, sweet, tasty, treat
