Dark chocolate chip cookies

Happy New Year everyone!

I’ve been experimenting with cookies for the new year 🙂  In my quest to find the best method for the perfect chewy (yet crisp on the outside) cookie, I’ve made several adjustments to the recipe I’ve used for years.  Here comes the science people…

In this recipe, I’ve used half strong bread flour and half self-raising flour.  Bread flour is higher in gluten, therefore will produce a better rise and chewier texture compared to just using plain flour.  Self-raising flour is something that I know is not available in all countries, however it is essentially plain flour (all-purpose) with baking powder added.  For around 150g of flour it means adding 1 tsp baking powder.  This recipe also contains a high proportion of brown sugar, which is better at keeping the cookies moist days after baking, compared with white sugar.

The result of this recipe is a slightly crisp around the edges, but squidgy in the middle cookie.  This recipe is comes pretty close to perfect in my book, but of course I will keep experimenting for you.  The sacrifices I make 😀  I’ve just used dark chocolate chips today, however, they would be just as good with white chocolate, milk chocolate or a mix of all 3!

The trick of chilling the dough for at least an hour (something I’ve learnt from many bloggers) means that the cookies do not spread so much whilst baking.  Taking them out of the oven when they look dangerously close to being uncooked is also important.  They will firm up as they cool. Getting soft, chewy cake like cookies comes from the brownie school of ‘they still look raw in the middle, but I’m taking them out of the oven anyway’ philosophy 🙂

Using dark chocolate chips means that the overall cookie taste is not massively sweet, which makes these cookies fairly easy to eat.  In fact, I appear to have eaten 3 in the past 5 minutes.  Oops.

Ingredients (makes around 10 cookies):

• 3oz unsalted butter
• 3oz light brown sugar
• 1oz caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 3oz self-raising flour
• 3oz bread flour
• 6oz dark chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to Gas 4/180C.  Cream the butter & sugars together (with a mixer or by hand) until they become pale and fluffy.  Beat in the egg.
2. Mix in the flours until you have a stiff cookie dough.  Fold in the chocolate chips.
3. Chill the dough for at least an hour.  It can even be frozen at this point if you wish, so you have some cookie dough available for baking in a cookie emergency 😀
4. Drop spoonfuls of the cookie dough onto a lined baking tray.  I used a 1/4 cup measure for this, as it ensured the cookies were fairly even in size.
5. Bake for around 10 minutes (but check after 9)