Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies

I always recommend eating the cookies with a cup of tea or coffee to ensure you can handle eating six in a sitting. We don’t want that ‘back of the throat’ sugar build-up to hold you back from full enjoyment!

SERVES 20

INGREDIENTS

280 g all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp sea salt flakes, plus extra for sprinkling (for that salty ‘pop’)
150 g unsalted butter, softened
150 g brown sugar
100 g caster sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
250 g dark chocolate chips 

1. Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Give these dry ingredients a good whisk and set aside.

2. Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugars, egg and vanilla. (I add the egg at this point because the added moisture helps the butter really cream up.)

3. Add all of the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips to the butter mixture and mix until just combined. Do not overmix the dough once the flour has been added – you don’t want to develop any of the gluten in the flour, as this will leave you with a tough cookie.

4. This is the hardest step of all: refrigerate your cookie dough for 12–36 hours before baking. The longer you refrigerate the dough, the more flavour development will occur, the less the cookies will spread and the better the overall texture will be. Seems worth it, hey?

5. When you’re ready to bake your cookies, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) fan-forced. Line two baking trays with baking paper or silicone baking mats. Place six golf ball-sized rounds of dough on each tray, using about 50 g dough for each one. The cookies will spread, so give them space to do their thing. Sprinkle with extra sea salt flakes.

6. Bake the cookies in batches for 12-14 minutes or until they’re caramelised around the edges but still soft and blond towards the centre.

7. Allow the cookies to cool on the trays for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack, then dive in, head first.

Images and text from Some of My Best Friends Are Cookies by Emelia Jackson, photography by Armelle Habib, illustrations by Andrea Smith.
Murdoch Books RRP $45.