Monday, 4 October 2010

The perfect chocolate chip cookie (?)


Here is the first instalment of the featured Cookbook of the Month for October - 'Kitchen' by Nigella Lawson. I have been busy bookmarking all the recipes I'd like to try this month and there are so many that I had to get started early! What better time to start than a long weekend


These cookies seemed like a good place to start after I read what Nigella had to say about her pursuit of the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe:

I've tried. I can't tell you how often I've tried. Many cookies have been baked, and many have been eaten. What do they say? Dirty work, but someone's got to do it. And the cookie recipe that follows i happy evidence that my hard work has not been for naught.

I've tried a lot of chocolate chip cookie recipes too (but probably not as many as Nigella though!) and I'll give you my review shortly, but first here is the recipe!

Chocolate chip cookies
(from Kitchen by Nigella Lawson)

(makes approx. 14)

150g soft unsalted butter
125g soft light brown sugar
100g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg, fridge-cold
1 egg yolk, fridge-cold
300g flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
326g milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius/gas mark 3. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Melt the butter and let it cool a little. Put the brown and white sugars into a bowl, pour the slightly cooled, melted butter over them and beat together.

Beat in the vanilla, the cold egg and cold egg yolk until your mixture is light and creamy.


Slowly mix in the flour and bicarb until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.



Scoop the cookie dough into an American quarter-cup measure or a 60ml round ice-cream scoop and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, plopping the cookies down about 8cm apart. You will need to make these in 2 batches, keeping the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge between batches.



Bake for 15-17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

Make ahead note
The cookies can be made up to 3 days ahead and stored in an airtight container. Will keep for a total of 5 days.

Freeze Note
Unbaked cookie dough can be scooped onto parchment paper lined baking sheets and frozen until solid. Transfer frozen dough to resealable bags and freeze for up to 3 months. Bake direct from frozen, as directed in recipe but adding extra 2-3 minutes to baking time.




The Verdict
These cookies were tasty and I really enjoyed the texture - crisp on the edges with a slightly squidgy interior. Flavour wise they were good, a choc-chip cookie that I imagine children would devour. But for me I prefer a more grown-up chocolate taste, so I think I'd replace the milk chocolate chips with either semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips next time. Everyone's palate is different though, so you'll have to give these a go yourself!

Also, a note on the size of these cookies... If you follow Nigella's ice cream scoop tip (which is undoubtedly handy and quick, I cannot deny that), you will end up with HUGE cookies (pictured above). Some love the sort of cookies that are as big as your palm, but I myself am not a huge fan of this. I find them too much to eat, so I made some big ones, as well some smaller ones with my tablespoon scoop. Smaller ones (pictured below) of course cook quicker, and they fit a lot easier in my cookie jar :)


Stay tuned for the next instalment of Nigella's latest work!


Ladybird x

53 comments:

  1. They are great! I have her new cookbook too. But I am savouring all nearly 500 pages before I start.

    Thank you for the inspiration. I use the icecream scoop thing for cupcakes - works a treat and keeps them all the same size.

    Love you blog too

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  2. I was so close to cooking choc chip cookies yesterday! Now I wish I had have. Yummmm.

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  3. Oh My! These cookies looks awesome! Thanks for sharing the tip of using an ice-cream scoop! I always mess it up while using tablespoons!!
    The pictures are beautiful!

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  4. I'm always on a look out for the best choc chip recipe too...
    Yours turned out amazing..love the photos!

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  5. I totally agree, I prefer a darker chocolate, or at least a mix of the two. I will the recipe however. I also made your easy lemon tart on the week end and it was really good, but it did not look half as pretty as yours (let me add I made it in the wrong baking dish...). I will be posting about it very soon (as soon as I download the pics), so keep tune and thanks for the recipe!

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  6. Yum- chocolate chip cookies. I need to find the perfect recipe- and this one sounds good. I really am a big kid=- but would also like a dark version too!

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  7. I've never baked cookies before so please pardon my ignorance but I always find it so fascinating that cookies flatten out to be all cookie-shaped and flat despite going into the ovens as a ball. How fascinating is that! I would have thought they'd bake like that... as a ball.

    Dark chocolate chips would make for a yum chocolate chip cookie!

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  8. Hmmmm...there's so many choc-chip cookies out there to try!! I've only ever tried three recipes because choc chip cookies were one of the first things I ever baked- after my first two failures with the first two recipes I tried, and finally succeeding with the third, I gave up experimenting and have been using the same recipe ever since! haha....
    These look delicious though! I love how they look so different to most other choc chip cookies I've seen- not quite as crinkly as the really chewy ones but they still look sorta soft!

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  9. yuM!! Your cookies look so tasty!!!

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  10. They're so perfectly uniform! I really must buy myself an ice cream scoop. And then make this recipe.

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  11. These look great! so clever to use the icecream scoop!

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  12. They look fantastic! I always think it's so hard to make cookies look good, but you've definitely succeeded doing that! :-)

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  13. Loved them dearly<-- coming from a guy who doesn't like sweet stuff that much..

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  14. Love Nigella, her recipes are always great! Yummm...

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  15. i have this cookbook too! and let me just say, your cookies look exactly like the ones in pictured in the book, i must get round to making a batch soon! by the way, glad to have stumbled across your blog - i love it!

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  16. I adore Nigella. These photos are divine, love them! I so want some choc chip cookies now :)
    Heidi xo

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  17. I love chocolate chip cookies! The ever elusive "perfect" recipe is hard to find. The photos of your cookies look like they might be "the ones". I'm drooling!

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