CHEWY DOTTY CHOCCY COOKIES

The baking mood struck last Wednesday and resulted in these chewy chocolate chip cookies. I brought a tin to work on Thursday and whipped them out exactly as the morning coffee arrived, which met with the approval of most, and some despairing looks from those on diets. The mixture only made sixty thousand cookies so I also thrust a hefty container at my mum to dispense amongst her colleagues. Home-made cookies are a devilishly moreish thing and can be dangerous if left sitting idle. As fun as it is to bake, it's not so great to find yourself thundering along the pavement after your diet for the past 72 hours has consisted largely of milk and cookies. Hence when embarking on any baking endeavour I've decided it's always best to have a clear target or two in mind, on whom you can innocently offload your sinful treats.

Not to speak ill of the the delicious – and delicious, these are. The choc-chip recipe I've been using for years is just fine, but I was hankering for a chewy cookie. I found this recipe online. They're soft in the middle with a brownie-like crunchy chew on the outside. There are a couple of tips for achieving a desirable level of chewiness. You want to take the cookies out of the oven when they're just starting to look brown. If you give them a little poke, like I did, you might think, "Oh dear. Raw. I done a boo-boo." But don't fret. They will come good once they've cooled. The second tip is to cook these on baking paper (recipe said not to, but I did anyway – like a crazy rebel) and as soon as you take them out of the oven, hold the edge of the baking paper and slide the whole sheet of cookies onto the wire cooling racks. If you leave them on the oven trays to cool they will harden up and you will be left with a crunchy cookie. So those are your options – whatever floats your boat.

INGREDIENTS

2/3 cup melted butter

2 cups lightly packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tablespoons hot water

2 2/3 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bi-carb soda

1/4 tsp salt

270g choc chips (dark, milk or white)

METHOD

Preheat oven to 190 C fan forced. Lightly grease baking trays and cover with baking paper.

Mix together melted butter, brown sugar, eggs and hot water. Stir in sifted flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Stir in choc chips.

Drop spoonfuls of mixture onto baking trays and decorate the top with extra chips, or as I did, M&Ms.

Bake for approximately ten minutes. Remove from oven once slightly brown. For a delicious chewy cookie, slide the whole sheet of baking paper onto a wire cooling rack as soon as they're out of the oven.