Chocolate Chip Cookies

My daughter has been asking me to bake cookies with her for the past couple of weeks now. I finally remembered yesterday to buy the unsalted butter I like to use for baking as well as spied on some chocolate chips in the local store. So, of course I had to make chocolate chip cookies!

I had seen some really amazing look choco-chip cookie in Nigella Express, but really there was chocolate *and* chocolate chips *and* cocoa powder as well as 2 cups of sugar in it and 125gms of butter. So, I decided to take the recipes I have used before and tweak it a bit - after all cookies are quite forgiving. I usually use a ratio of 1:2 for the butter to flour ratio and one egg for this amount is usually enough - don't like the smell when I put more than that- in fact for sugar cookies, I use only the egg white.

I added oats to the cookies to add some fibre, since I haven't used whole wheat flour in it. I powdered the oats though before adding it to the batter - my daughter (like many young kids) sometimes hates different textures in one food and I wanted her to enjoy her first home made chocolate chip cookie.

The cookies were rich and dark with the lovely bite of chocolate chips - they were soft and chewy too. I like my cookies crisp so I am going to experiment some more to see how I can make them crisper - would baking them for more time burn them? time to find out!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Flour - 1 1/4 cup
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup (I powdered it)
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Cocoa powder - 1 tbsp

Brown Sugar - 1 cup
Butter - 1/2 cup (about 60gms)
Egg - 1
Milk - 1 tbsp
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Chocolate Chips - 3/4 cup

Makes 15-18 cookies.

1. Cream butter and sugar together till smooth and shiny - 3 minutes with an electric mixer.
2. Add the egg, milk and vanilla essence and beat for another 3 minutes.
3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and the oats. Pre heat oven to 180C (350F)
4. Add the dry ingredients to the butter, egg mixture - one third at a time and fold in gently.
5. Add the chocolate chips last.
6. Take a teaspoonful of the batter (not tablespoon) and drop on a greased tray leaving enough space in between two; the batter will flatten and spread so leave enough space. In my trays that means only 5-6 at a time.
7. Bake for 10-11 minutes - they will be a little soft, but will become firm as they cool. Transfer to a wire rack to cook.