Amongst the things that fascinated me most when I moved to the US as a student years ago was how good the cookies were. Besides my fascination with the roads, public transport, supermarkets and well, all things American really, the cookie stood out as a comfort blanket. I was known to load up my shopping cart with Pepperidge Farm’s soft baked chocolate chip and oatmeal and raisin cookies on the weekly visit to the supermarket. I’m certain it had its contribution in bringing my weight back up to normal from the scrawniness that I had landed with a few months earlier.
They were such a far cry from the crunchy, light and brittle cookies or biscuits that I was used to back in India. These melted in your mouth, pressed all the right olfactory buttons and made time stand still with each disappearing cookie. The butter and the depth of flavours were bordering on addictive and I was convinced that there were few packaged foods as good as a good cookie. Much has changed in India from a decade ago. Several new bakeries and even the large companies that make packaged biscuits have their variants on gooey cookies. Few, however, in my opinion, make the cut. Making some wholesome yet decadent chocolate chip cookies, with big chunks of melting chocolate and without any industrial additives (which I’m sure the US versions had) is as easy as, well, chocolate chip cookies. Here’s a recipe that we’ve spent some time perfecting and it’s really quite simple. Chilling the dough, or freezing it a day ahead is highly recommended. Demolishing it a few minutes after it comes out of the oven is but a natural outcome of the exercise. This makes 24 cookies. Happy snacking.
Ingredients
1 cup salted butter (softened, but not melted)
2/3 cup brown / demerara sugar
3/4 castor sugar
2 eggs
2 cups dark chocolate (chopped into chunks)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
Method
1 Place the softened butter, brown and white sugar in a mixing bowl and gently cream them together for about a minute. Be careful not to overwork it, otherwise the cookie will spread a lot while baking. I used a simple stand mixture to make the dough, but it can easily be done in a mixing bowl with a silicon or rubber spatula.
2 Add both the eggs at this point and begin to cream them again till you get a smooth mixture and the eggs are thoroughly incorporated. Add the chopped chocolate chunks now and give it a few good turns.
3 On a sheet of butter paper, sieve the flour and baking powder together. Repeat this twice so the baking powder gets evenly mixed with the flour and any lumps are eliminated.
4 Now gradually add the flour mix to the batter and begin to mix again till all the flour has been used up and a nice, creamy dough forms. Transfer the dough into a clean bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
5 Preheat oven to 180 C. Place a butter paper sheet or silicon baking mat on a baking tray. Take the chilled cookie dough and form golf-ball-sized balls in your hand and place on the sheet about 3 inches apart.
6 Bake for 15 minutes, remove and cool slightly. Eat up! I happen to like it with a chilled glass of milk.
Note: One can add nuts or readymade chocolate chips to the mixture.
