Double Chocolate Oatmeal Almond Cookies/These cookies rock (no pun intended) !

If you haven't had a scalding hot cookie straight from the oven on a rainy Madras afternoon, you haven't lived. Especially if you haven't had a scoopful (or few) of cookie dough before the official baking starts.

It's comfort food. Cookie dough from the bowl, cookie from the oven. It belongs in the league of Milk Bikis+tea, curd rice+mango pieces (not pickle), nombu-kanji+chutney, nutella+spoon. Comfort food.

However, cookies can be a bit tiresome if you have a tiny oven. You'll have to chill, scoop and bake in never ending  batches. It's worth it. Blind trust?

These cookies were made for a friend who lives in the UK and is quite a bit of a baker herself. What do you make for people like that, right? She can bake and she lives in London, which is home to all sorts of fantastic food (albeit pricey).

I knew I had to go all out. Make a humongous everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, All-American cookie which Rachel Allen with her poppy-seeds-and-orange-zest wouldn't Bake. I had to pull out the artillery: Coffee, chocolate, cinnamon. Yes, yes, and yes.

And I know I could've made an Indian dish, like naan khatai. But, I knew that she (and I, in my position, as taster, baker and kickass friend) would appreciate fudgey-mocha flavours more. It's all about her.

To make it homey, however, I used Cadbury Dairy Milk to make chocolate chips and Cadbury's cocoa powder.

Don't let the oatmeal in the cookie scare you. It gives a fantastic texture to the cookie, which is heightened by the toasted almonds and chocolate chips. Also, I know the coffee and the cinnamon seem like a mishmash of flavours, but you can't distinguish them as individual entities. They work surprisingly well together, giving an almost posh flavour and elevating these from Subway cookies to Gourmet cookies.

 Make it, please? These will freeze well, keep well in an airtight box, can be dunked into cold milk for breakfast (beats Weetabix). I'm sure they even do somersaults.

Double chocolate Oatmeal Almond cookies:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1-1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp prepared espresso/coffee decoction

1-1/2 cups All-purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 cups oats

1/2 cup chopped almonds

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius.

Toast the chopped almonds slightly with some cinnamon. Take it off the heat and keep aside.

Blitz the sugars in a mixie/food processor for a few seconds... you don't want to them to be powdery, but not big granules either. I hand only demerara sugar instead of muscavado, so I used only 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 2 cups of white instead.

Beat the softened butter and sugars in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

I used the bitter espresso from my coffee pot. Yum!

Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Then go on and add the vanilla and the coffee decoction.

Cadbury's cocoa powder is the bomb!

In another bowl, stir together the cocoa, flour, salt and baking soda. Mix well.

Fold the flour mix into the butter-sugar mix.

This smells like the Cupcake facepack from Lush. Dab it on, eat it.. Happiness.

Add in oats and mix well. The dough will be stiff.

Stir in the nuts and chocolate chips.

Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, so it's easier to handle. Scoop out little balls and bake on an ungreased foil/cookie sheet.

Take it out in about 10 minutes. Cool for a minute, then take off the foil and cool on a rack until it's at room temperature.

See the swirly C of Cadbury's Dairy milk? Double yum.

Try to not overbake the cookies. The difference between an awesome cookie and a burnt cookie is about 80 seconds. You can freeze the unbaked cookie dough in the form of balls, or store the baked and cooled cookies in an airtight bag/box at room temperature.

Recipe source: Hershey's.

Dig in. Unless you have a food blog and then you need to take obligatory photographs of cookies-and-milk even though you've never had neat milk since the age of 10.