I have been craving chocolate like mad for the last couple of weeks, so the next few recipes will feature chocolate heavily! Not for the faint hearted, these cookies have a slightly more ‘cakey’ texture than other cookies I make but they hit the mark. I used half milk chocolate chips and half white chocolate chips but if you prefer one over the other just make up the weight with your favourite (all white might be quite good…).
Makes 24 decent sized biscuits. You’ll need four baking sheets/trays lined with greaseproof or baking paper.
Ingredients:
200 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250 g light soft brown sugar
1 large egg (free range, of course!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
150 g dark chocolate
320 g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
150 g milk chocolate chips
150 g white chocolate chips
Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 170ºC fan and get your baking trays prepared.
2. Using an electric mixer (I use a K-mix but a hand-held mixer will work fine), cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and the vanilla, and mix until combined.
4. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder together in a separate bowl. Add to the butter mixture in two batches, mixing well in between. The mixture will form a soft dough. Fold in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon.
5. Gather the mixture together by hand into a ball and wrap it in clingfilm. Place it in the fridge for 15 minutes. Remove from the fridge and divide it as best you can into equal-sized bits of dough (you should get 24 from this mixture). I just did this by eye and managed fine but you could always weigh each piece if you wanted to be extra professional!
6. Roll each piece into a ball and then flatten it with your hand so that each cookie is about 1 cm thick. Place six on a baking tray, ensuring they are evenly spaced (any more and they’ll spread and all stick together).
7. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. You won’t be able to see them going golden because of their dark colour, but they should be slightly firm around the edge and a bit softer in the middle when they’re ready. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for a while on the trays before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely.
Recipes from Loch a Tuath Hens 