Chewy Chocolate Chips Cookies

These are Eddy Halmagyi’s recipe from Better Homes and Gardens’ Better Basics magazine. I needed some cookies to share for playgroup today. They turn out flatter than I expected and way too sweet to be honest. I’d reduce the amount of butter and sugar next time. It gets crispier if you leave it in the oven for a few minutes longer.

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter, softened

110g caster sugar

180g dark brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

350g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

100g dark chocolate chips or chocolate broken into chunks

100g white chocolate chips or chocolate broken into chunks

150g roughly chopped nuts

Method:

1.          Preheat oven to 180C. Line oven trays with baking paper.

2.          Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy.

3.          Add vanilla and eggs. Beat until smooth.

4.          Sift flour and bicarb into butter mixture. Do not overmix.

5.          Fold in chocolate and nuts.

6.          Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and put on trays. Press flat.

7.          Bake for 12-14 minutes or until just set. Cool completely on wire racks.

Lactation Cookies

Okay?!!! Don’t be taken aback by the title. Yes these are cookies with special ingredients to boost breast milk production, however, my DH has eaten quite a number of these in the recent week and he hasn’t grown man boobs yet. It’d be nice for him to take over a few of the overnight feeds I tell you. The original recipe I found online came out a bit stodgy, so I decided I’d try a batch using my rock cakes recipe, they taste 100% better.

Ingredients:

75g butter

1/2 cup castor sugar (I used brown sugar this time)

1/2 cup Plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

2 cups rolled oats

2 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tbsp flaxseed meals

3 tbsp brewer’s yeasts

1 egg

1 tbsp treacle

1 cup dark chocolate chips

¾ cup chopped macadamia nuts

Method:

1.          Preheat oven to 180C.

2.          Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add to it the sugar.

3.          Chopped chilled butter into small cubes and add to the dry mixture.

4.          Used your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

5.          Add the flaxseed meal, sesame seeds, oats and brewer’s yeasts.

6.          Add lightly beaten egg and the treacle to the dry mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.

7.          Add the chocolate chips and nuts and mix till even.

8.          Spoon a heap tablespoonful of mixture onto a flat baking tray, pressing the top to flatten it a little, allowing room for the cookie mixture to spread.

9.          Bake in 180C oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown. The cookies will harden once they’re cooled.

Treacle Banana Cake

Banana cake is comfort food for me. I just love the aroma of it baking in the oven perfuming the house. I tweaked a recipe to include the treacle, and it’s come up really nice. It has a caramelised characteristic to it compared to the common garden variety.

Ingredients: (makes one 20cm round cake or 12 large muffins)

125g unsalted butter, softened

¾ brown sugar

1 large tbsp treacle

A pinch of salt

1 ½ cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarb soda

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 large bananas, mashed

1/3 cup buttermilk

Method:

1.          Preheat oven to 160C.

2.          Cream butter and sugar, add salt, vanilla, bananas and eggs. Mix well.

3.          Sift in the flour and bicarb soda.

4.          Gently fold it in pouring the buttermilk in two lots.

5.          Mix evenly.

6.          Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes for a cake, and 15 minutes for muffins.