Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Baking Bliss{adventure 01}
Heavenly Choc Chip Cookie

piping hot, straight out from the oven
♥ cookies from heaven
the wonder of baking.
i dont know about you, but baking helps take the stress out of me. baking is like killing two birds with one stone: i get to de-stressed myself during the process and everyone gets to enjoy the outcome! my baking history is very short: only 3 months. when i say baking, i mean baking something from scratch and not using ready mixes.

i actually wanted to bake neiman marcus choc chip cookies and see what's the craze about it. so i bought a pack of chocolate chips. and then i found out i dont have all the ingredients needed in the recipes. *aiks* i was so ready to make cookies that day.

kitchen lesson #1: make sure you check your recipes well before you do your shopping!

i am lazy. i couldnt be bothered to go out again. so i flipped through my recipes collection and i found this other recipe for choc chip cookies. i didnt have the exact same ingredients stated in the recipe but i thought that might do.

so here's the recipe without my twist:
Chocolate Chip Cookies
recipe from Rachel Grisewood of Manna From Heaven*

180g salted butter
180g raw sugar
1.5 egg yolks
100g milk chocolate, finely chopped
160g dark chocolate, finely chopped
300g plain flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 160c. Cream the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the egg yolks. Fold in the chocolate, flour, baking powder and vanilla essence. Roll into rough balls about the size of a walnut and push down with your fingers until you have a flattish biscuit. Cover two baking trays with paper and place the biscuits a little apart (about 3cm). Bake for about 20 minutes or until just golden underneath. Cool on a rack.

*manna from heaven is a sydney-based handmade biscuits company. their miniature cakes products are just heavenly! their chocolate praline cake is my favourite!

rolling dough into balls!
♥ cute little cookies dough balls
the recipe said makes about 20 biscuits but i managed to roll out 30 cookies balls and they are of size bigger than walnut. it also took longer than 20 minutes to bake. the cookies were still too soft after 20 minutes. i tried lifting up one of the cookies to check for its golden-ness underneath but *aiks* the cookies was too soft and it broke up into tiny pieces. it took 40 minutes to get the cookie completely cooked.

flattening the cookie ball slightly
♥ flattish cookies dough before going into the oven
here's my twisted version of the recipe:
180g unsalted butter (didnt have salted butter)
180g dark muscovado sugar
2 egg yolks
100g dark chocolate, finely chopped ( i used Lindt 70% cocoa)
60g milk chooclate, finely chopped ( i used Lindt milk chocolate)
100g chocolate chips
60g self raising flour
60g corn flour
180g wholemeal flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

i had intended to replace only half the raw sugar with the dark muscovado sugar but once again, i didnt check my pantry properly so i ended up using just the dark muscovado sugar. i have to say this sugar has a very distinctive flavour. it acts a nice caramel-flavour to my cookies.

about the many different type of flours. hm. i wanted to use up the remaining 60g of self-raising flour at home. i was a little sceptical about using only wholemeal flour because it can have a very dry and grainy texture. to counteract this, i replace 60g with corn flour. this also reduces the protein content so less glutten! i increased the yolks to 2 because i know the wholemeal flour i used needed more liquid than normal plain flour to bind.

Manna From Heaven Choc Chip Cookie Recipe
♥ crunchy choc chip cookies
the result?
a very crunchy, chocolatey cookies with a touch of caramel flavour.

room for improvement?
the cookies is a tad too sweet. i think i might have to reduce the sugar next time. having just one choc-chip cookie is enough to give you headache-because-of-overly-sweet-food. but that still didnt stop me from munching two cookies in one go.

the recipe makes more cookies than i thought. i dont think baking 30 cookies in one go is a good idea so i actually froze half a batch in the freezer. the other day, i had a friend coming over and i havent had time to make something so i took the cookies out from the freezer and thawed them on baking trays. then bake them as usual. i reckon keeping frozen cookie dough can be very handy :-)

incredible choc chip cookie from manna from heaven
♥ cookies look-alike: chipsmore cookies
i was indeed surprised by the look of the cookies. they resemble so much of my favourite choc chip cookies back home: chipsmore cookies. then i took a bite. oh dear. the texture is so much like chipsmore cookies! except that this is a little sweeter.

cross section of cookies
♥ crunchy and chocolatey
if you are after crunchy and chocolatey cookies, this might just be the one for you. it's lovely as a tea-time snack with a cup of tea or as a mid-night sweets-craving. i find it particularly good for pms. hehe. just another excuses for a little self-indulgence!

Manna From Heaven
78 Livingstone Road
Marrickville NSW 2204
ph: (02) 9572 7177
fax: (02) 9560 1742