richard Needing as we did to both satisfy a craving for something sweet and shift some particularly average Christmas chocolate balls from Lidl, these ChocChip™ Cookies perfectly fulfilled both requirements. Obviously you don’t need to rush to Lidl and rummage through the ‘end of line’ slop bucket in search of the last remaining net of stale Yule Chocco Balls as they can be substituted by any chocolate you like. Green and Blacks 70% if you’re posh…Smarties if you’re common…you know which you are.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 12 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: about a dozen, plus lots of tasty trimmings
Ingredients
- butter – softened – 113g
- light brown sugar – 146g
- 1 egg – beaten
- plain flour – 128g
- baking powder – ½tsp
- vanilla extract – 1tsp
- chocolate chips (or chopped up chocolate) – 90g
Preheat your oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5.
Grease 2 baking sheets.
In a bowl beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg.
Mix the flour and baking powder together and then stir into the butter mixture.
Add the vanilla extract and stir.
Finally stir in the chocolate chips of your choice.
Spoon dollops of the mixture onto the baking sheets – leave plenty of room between them as they will spread considerably.
Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.
Leave to cool on a wire rack.
If you want a neater cookie, trim with a cookie cutter (and eat all the trimmings).
Verdict: Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle, chocolate throughout. Very good indeed.
Drink: Makes a good dunker.
Entertainment: Sitting on the sofa with a poorly Yumblog Junior watching ‘Timmy Time‘.
Made these this afternoon and will make again. Lessons I have learned for next time:
1. If you are going to make chocolate chip cookies, make sure you have some chocolate chips before you start. Otherwise you will only have to go to the Costcutter halfway through making the dough and grudgingly buy some of decidedly inferior quality.
2. Allow more space than you think you need between the blobs of dough on the baking sheet. And make said blobs smaller than you think they should be. They don’t half spread.
3. Watch them like the proverbial hawk. Mine were a bit singed at the edges. Whipping them out a minute or two earlier would have made all the difference.