Cookies!

I am a little bit of a cookie monster. I have always loved a proper cookie - by which I mean American style, soft centred chocolate chip cookies (the bigger the better of course).

So, it's taken me a while, but I finally found the best cookie recipe!

 

Ingredients:

125g (4.5oz) Butter
185g (6.5oz) Soft Brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract (or essence)
1 Egg (lightly beaten)
1 Tablespoon Milk
215g (7.5oz) Plain Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
250g (9oz) Chocolate Chips (I prefer white chocolate, but that's just me!)

Method:

Firstly pre-heat the oven to 180'c, and using baking paper to line a few baking trays (15 cookies tend to take up 3 trays but you don't have to cook them all at once). I also prefer to measure all my ingredients out before doing anything else, but it isn't necessary so whatever works best for you.

Chop up the butter into manageable pieces and add into a mixing bowl along with the sugar. Then cream the butter and the sugar using an electric whisk (this tastes really good so you can be excused for having a little taste!).

Mix in the vanilla  extract and then gradually add in the beaten egg, mixing as you go along.

After stirring in the milk, sift the flour and baking powder into the mixing bowl and fold into the mixture using a metal spoon (helps to keep the air in the mixture).

Finally add in the choc chips and stir well.

Now this bit is a little messy but you do get to lick your fingers (and the bowl) at the end!

Use a tablespoon to spoon the mixture onto the covered baking trays, leaving a decent gap between each spoonful allowing the mixture to spread out in the oven - I tend to put 5 cookies on a tray (obviously depending on the size of the tray).

Squash the cookies down a little using a floured fork, and place in the oven.

The cookies take about 15minutes but I tend to check them after 12minutes before deciding whether they need anymore time (if you are putting in a second batch its likely they wont take as long but once again there is no harm in checking along the way - nobody wants burnt cookies!).

This gives you just enough time to lick to bowl, clean up and set out a wire rack for cooling the cookies.

When they are cooked (look golden brown but still soft to the touch) place them on the rack to cool. Once they are cool I suggest putting them straight into an air tight container so that they stay nice and soft.

Now its time to enjoy! They taste best when warm, but you can heat them up just before eating (30 sec in the microwave does the trick) so you don't have to eat them all immediately.