Chocolate Chip Cookie 101, 201, so on and so forth.

If you've ever seen the "About Me" page, you would've read the bit about being "The Girl Who Makes Chocolate Chip Cookies."

After all that build up and a year-and-a-half's worth of frantic food blogging, I realised that there isn't ONE honest-to-God Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe on the blog. Shame on me.

My excuse is that I make these little babies so often that I don't pause to take photos of the process. I've been making the TollHouse cookies since Time Immemorial (actually, 2002). They've almost never gone wrong on me and I don't believe in fixing things if they aren't (can't bring myself to say ain't) broken. Then the food-blog lifestyle happened.

And thus began my search for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in the Whole Wide World.

After much experimentation, the thing I've inferred is that term "Best" is purely subjective. I love my cookies to be cakey and chewy, with a high chocolate:cookie dough ratio. I don't do crisp, biscuit-type cookies. I'll scarf down packet after packet of Walkers' shortbread, of course. But if there was a plate of biscotti versus a plate of cookies, I'd be pigging out on the cookies.

As would my trusted merry band of guinea pigs.

"B****, please. Don't be up in my space when I'm watching ToyStory3 for the 1000th time."

P.S.: We eat rice by the sack-and-drum full. However, we do not let our kids swear. I swear.

Nigbe's "B****, please, I'm eating" poker face. The expert judges don't give anything away.

It's an easy recipe... that automatically means it's easy enough to screw up. I'll show you pictorially (and spare you the thousand words), on what you should and shouldn't do.

The butter has to be softened and at room temperature, as per Nestle Tollhouse's original CCC recipe. I heat my butter until it's just about melted; this helps to melt down the dark brown sugar and imparts a robust flavour to the cookies. It's boring to wait around for the butter to soften... even at Madras, where it takes about two minutes.



The recipe originally calls for an egg and a egg yolk. Since our Indian eggs have very little albumin, I dump two full eggs in. I suck at separating whites and yolks, anyway.



Use the darkest demerara sugar you can find. Light brown sugar works, not as good as dark though. Not only does it stay a little granulated, giving your cookies some crunch, it melts into a delicious, chewy caramel goodness. As for the white sugar, use granulated, not powdered!

For cakey cookies, use All-Purpose flour (maida). Alton Brown recommends Bread Flour only, the NY Times recommends a blend of Bread flour and Cake flour, but this is a moot point at Madras. For authentic cookies, use AP flour. You can experiment with wholewheat once you master basic CCCs.

Oooh. The most important part. The chocolate chips. Could you buy a log of disgusting cooking chocolate and chop it into chunks? No.

Could you throw in whatever chocolate you have on hand? The pre-made chocolate chips you find at Nilgris and other supermarkets? HELL, no.

No. No. No. No. And no.

Use only chocolate that you love eating. It doesn't work otherwise. And make sure you chop big fat chunks out of it. Since I found Galaxy Smooth chocolate bars on sale, I bought eight bars of it, ate four, and used the remaining for these cookies. How I wish I were lying.

I've used milk and dark chocolate chips in the ratio of 2:1. It gets too sickeningly sweet, otherwise.

Beat the eggs, sugar and butter as much as you want. After you add in the flour, chocolate chips and other random mix-ins, get a hold of yourself.

Always, always, always add salt. Eat the cookie dough, if you don't feel very strongly about Salmonella. Even if you don't have the time to refrigerate it for 24 to 36 hours, stow it in the fridge for at least half an hour. It is a whole lot less messy and has a deeper flavour that way.

That texture, that grittiness, that colour, that's what you want.

Browned edges, pale-ish centre. That's the cookie cooked. Let it cool for a couple of minutes before you take it off the pan/sheet.



Ooooh. Yes.



Cool completely on a wire rack before you throw it in an air-tight box. Remember, baked cookies keep up to three days. If you freeze the dough in the form of balls, in a Ziploc bag, it lasts for a couple of months. Refrigerating cookie dough is permissible for up to 5 days.

Nothing like a plate full of freshly baked cookies, though. That's Love, that is.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe:
(Adapted from Baking Illustrated)

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1.5 cups milk and dark chocolate chunks.
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped. (optional)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 325 F or 160 C. Line a baking tin with aluminium foil. You don't have to grease it.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix well and keep aside.

In another bowl, melt the butter and let it turn lukewarm. Add in the sugars and beat for around 2 minutes. Blend in the eggs and vanilla essence until combined.

Now add in the flour mix. It's better to fold in by hand, but if you must use the beater, do it at the lowest speed and STOP when it's moderately combined.

Stir in the nuts (if using) and chocolate chips.

At this point, refrigerate the cookie dough (after eating several spoonfuls raw, of course) for at least half an hour. Using a ice-cream scoop or a soup spoon/ladle type thing, form balls out of the cookie dough.

You can Saran/cling-film wrap the bowl with the dough in it, so that it doesn't absorb any of the refrigerator smells.

Place about 1/4 cup worth of cookie dough on the sheet. Space the cookies, as they tend to spread and bake.

Bake for 15 minutes and check if the edges are mildly brown and hard. The centres have to be puffy, soft and tan. Rotate the sheet once during the baking process so that all of the cookies get equal heat.

Take it out and cool it on the sheet for 2 minutes. Let it completely cool on the wire rack.

Enjoy!

Variation:

This is fun variation I found at Kevin and Amanda's site when I had a hankering for Red Lobster's Chocolate Chip Cookie Lava Cake.

It's supremely simple.

You can do this in a muffin tin or biscuit tin. Press down about quarter cup of cookie dough. Add a square or two of chocolate.

Stuff back with more cookie dough.

Bake away until the edges are golden brown! After a minute or two, turn out the cookie/cake monstrosity (in a GREAT way).

Serve with vanilla ice cream and fudgy sauce of your choice.

This is Lust. This is.

Let Me Take You Down, 'Cause I'm Going To...

Strawberries!

How I love thee.

I've made so many crazy things with strawberries this month, I don't know which one to post! Help.

We started off with those crepes. Baby steps into Strawberry Fields Forever.

The Strawberry Swirled Cheesecake with a Dark Chocolate Brownie Base? With a Strawberry Sauce to add fire to the whole thing.

W loves his Warhol-esque photowork!

Roasted strawberry-balsamic jam goes into it. So does brown butter and Milkmaid and a lot of fattening things that can only churn out Deliciousness on a plate.

Maybe the Strawberry Yogurt cake is a better place to start. It's easy, quick and one-bowl. And also the adaptation of the Spanish Orange Cake, which is one of the most popular recipes on the blog.

You know what's better than a rich, dense New York-style Cheesecake?

A cloud-like concoction of cream cheese, whipped cream and condensed milk. Very easy and disproportionately delicious NoBake Cheesecake. With a homemade strawberry topping, buttery graham cracker crust and chocolate-ganache covered strawberries.

They taste like bliss.

As do Strawberry Cheesecake Truffles. Dipped in Chocolate Ganache made with Toblerone.

And you know how I'm always mouthing off about brownies being akin to bread?

You know: putting Dulce de Leche into them, browning butter, drenching them with caramel?

Turns out that if you bake them with a Strawberry swirl, your olfactory mechanism might have the best party of their lives.

The smell of chocolate brownie baking, strawberry juices reducing and a tiny waft of brown butter?

You can't be an atheist if you've smelt this stuff. It is heavenly. Standing in front of the oven, with preprandial glee and a jackass-smile? One of the best five minutes of my culinary life.

And if you think all these calorific treats should remain rare treats, I'd suggest you make them all and often and Phone A Friend!

I'm properly confused. Time for a Strawberry-Cucumber juice. Let's hope my luck with the berries continue.
Stock your freezer with washed/dried/hulled strawberries in airtight freezer-safe boxes... the berry season is drawing to a close. This way, You Can Be Taken Down...

Strawberry Fields Forever.

Wholewheat Orange Ricotta Scones/Dessert for Breakfast!

I'm a dessert snob. Dessert has to be dessert. Seriously.

I'm not saying that I need a pint of expensive gelato with visible vanilla bean flecks. A sliver of cheesecake, a spoonful (or ten) of Nutella, honey-swirled Greek yogurt: qualifies for dessert. Half an apple isn't. Not even if you sprinkle cinnamon on it.

For the longest time, the only healthy component in any of my desserts happened to be Oats. In cookies, crumble, fudge... the other components being only butter, sugar and maida (AP flour). And chocolate.
The sad part being, this wasn't the best scenario in a household where the prime eaters are a diabetic-with-a-sweet-tooth-and-no-self-control (Dad) and the-girl-who-had-a-root-canal-at-the-age-of-five (Sums).

Dad has his own definition of dessert as well. Cinnamon rolls made with wholewheat flour, Phirni made with Splenda and Slim milk, he does not deign to eat. Trust me, I've tried. As for Sumi, she adds extra butter when I'm not looking. Who are these people?

So when I came across another one of those "healthy dessert" recipes, I didn't ever think it'd make the cut/blog. I made it from milk that had curdled in the cruel Madras heat! How can a recipe from odds-and-ends taste remotely good, right?

Wrong.

These Orange Ricotta scones are fantastic. Crisp like a biscuit on the outside and light-fluffy-airy on the inside.

They can be manipulated with whole-wheat flour and sugar-substitutes; nobody would know the difference. I'd suggest that the sugar that you use for sprinkling over the scones, pre-baking, is either raw/demerara/turbinado or the coarse/granulated sugar that is given out by the Tamilnadu Government's Ration-kadai. It'll add a nice bit of crunch and luxurious sweetness to a simple breakfast pastry.

Everybody (including Dad, whose version was a leetle bit toned down) enjoyed it. Even Sumi ate a couple... she recommends you dunk it in condensed milk or honey or both.

One more thing I'd have to insist on is you make them and eat them instantly. These do not keep (keep well, at least). I always freeze my shaped scone dough in Ziploc bags, so I can take out and bake it at my wish and whimsy. It's almost a party trick, when you make a smashing smoothie out of frozen, over-ripe bananas and a plateful of freshly baked Chocolate-chip cookies and present it to a guest within five minutes of their unexpected arrival. So don't let anybody tell you it's weird to stock your deep freezer.

We'll get to making these scones now? I've liberally adapted the recipe from this site, subbing out all the "fancy" ingredients for healthier options and methods suited to the Indian kitchen. They're easy-peasy, but also equally easy-peasy to go wrong. After many attempts, I'm leaking out the secret on these babies. Pay attention, my lovelies.

Wholewheat Orange Ricotta scones:

Ingredients:

1 cup wholewheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
zest of half an orange
3/4 cup fresh chenna (paneer) or whole ricotta cheese
1/4 cup butter (cold)
1/2 cup milk + 1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp orange juice
1/4 tsp vanilla essence

For sprinkling
1 egg, lightly beaten (I skipped this)
1 tbsp raw/demerara/turbinado sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Centigrade, 400 degrees Farenheit. Line a baking tray with greased foil or baking paper.

In a bowl, rub the orange zest into the sugar, releasing all the flavour and colour into it. Add into it the white flour, wholewheat flour, sugar, baking powder, baking powder and salt. Give it a stir and set aside.

Use a grater/microplaner to grate the cold butter into the flour mix. Combine the flour and the butter (use your sterilised thumb and fingers!) until the mixture resembles coarse sand. There should be a few clumps.

Combine the milk and paneer(curdled milk)/ricotta.

For a richer scone, use whole milk or half-and-half!

Add the milk mix to the scone dough and combine with fingers until it is a granular mix.

Add in the vanilla and orange juice and stir gently.

Turn the dough out onto a clean workspace that has already been dusted with flour. Pat the dough into a circle.

Don't pummel it too much, or the pastry will be gummy.

Cut it into 8 triangles. You can flash-freeze and store these in an airtight freezer bag/box for a few weeks.

If you're making them right away:

Brush the tops of the individual scones with the beaten egg or milk (I used milk). Sprinkle the sugar over it.

Bake for around 15-20 minutes, until the craggy exterior is all golden brown.

Eat hot! And you know what else is better than Dessert? Dessert for breakfast!

With a mug of Cafe au Lait and the Sunday tabloids. It's my version of living the high life.

Blogoversary, Part Two/Salted Peanut, Double Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookie. Whew.

Cookies. How I love thee.

And like all good things in life, it takes work to make the perfect batch. Well, not to make them, per se. Baking them in batches is tiresome. Whipping up and eating a bucket-load of cookie dough? Easy as pie.

Pie isn't all that easy, by the way.

Cookie dough is bonafide Easetown. It's a one bowl wonder. Make the dough, scarf down a third of it, bake a third, flash-freeze the remaining dough and bake yourself some piping hot monster-sized cookies whenever you want. Breakfast, post-gym, midnight television. Carry some for sleep-overs and become the most popular girl there.

I'm speaking from life experience.

Make these cookies. You know; for the sake of life experiences. Don't be scared of the salted peanuts and chocolate chips. It works on ten different levels.

I made mine from 3/4th of a big Cadbury's Dairy Milk Bar. Notice the white Toblerone? I'm not a fan of white chocolate, but it goes pretty well in this recipe. I've adapted this from Brown Eyed Baker, who has never let me down when I want something with peanut butter and chocolate in it.

Add a little extra if you're going to keep stealing and stuffing your face! I always do.

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal-Double-Chocolate-Chip cookies:
(makes 32 cookies)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour (maida)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup granulated white sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup salted, roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup white or milk chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C  (350 degrees F).

Line a baking tray with aluminium foil or parchment paper and keep it aside.

In a big bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. Keep aside.

In another bowl, beat together the butter, peanut butter, eggs, vanilla essence, white and brown sugar on Medium speed for around 3 minutes. Add the eggs and beat until combined.

Fold in the flour mix with a spatula, until just combined. Stir in the oats and the nuts, give it a mix.

Finally, add the chocolate chips. 

Place the cookie dough  in the form of scoops on the aluminium foil (no need to grease), leaving around 5 cms between each cookie. If you're using unsalted peanuts, you could try sprinkling half a pinch of coarse salt over the cookie dough before baking. Make indentations with a fork, if you like.

Bake for around 10 minutes, until lightly brown.

See the overbaked brown one? Not as chewy! :(

Pull out, let it cool completely on the foil. Store in air-tight containers.

Do have a cookie hot out of the oven. Dunk it in chocolate syrup or make an ice-cream sandwich. Eat half a dozen for dinner. Do get a full fasting lipid profile. Kidding. Oats and dark chocolate should cancel out the butter, no?

Are any cookie-houses hiring PR people?

Oreo Cheesecake Truffles/"Dessert in a Minute!" or similar.

This post has been in the works for a long time now.

Especially after all those yummy, but let's be honest, tiresomely-long recipes, I wanted to let you know that I do have two-minute desserts up my sleeve. Literally and figuratively.

If you're ready to splash out on a dessert, or if you live in a country that isn't Robin Hoodian, this one is for you.

Actually, Robin Hood is an unfair comparison; he stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Here? They steal from the rich (an exorbitant VAT on cream cheese and cocoa powder) and from the "middle class" (fuel, public transport, milk) and from the dirt-poor (ration kerosene, rice, sugar) and store it in their own little coffers until the Opposition comes into power, unearth unfair wealth, splash it over their syndicated publications and proceed to transfer the funds to their own Cayman Island accounts. It's a lovely little vicious cycle.

I made this because

a)it has LOADS of chocolate in it.
b)Zaad and Sumaiya are huge fans of "cook-ay balls!"
c)A's birthday happened. This dessert has no eggs (that's never stopped her from eating dessert, but still, I wanted her folks to think I was empathetic towards their vegetarian beliefs). Oh, and she is one of the last few people on the planet who have no qualms about calories. The I-don't-give-a-crap-about-calories thing is refreshing, try it.

And yes, it takes only a few minutes to whip up. The downside to this recipe (not considering the pricey ingredients) would be the inclusion of Oreo cookies.

I don't like Oreos (fun fact #45 about me). I'd rather eat white chocolate than Oreos and if I were the type to use the word hate for food... well, I can't, so let's just say I wouldn't eat white chocolate or Oreos even if you paid me.

I know that hasn't stopped me from putting it into frothy milkshakes and birthday cakes, but I really wouldn't sit down, unwrap a vivid blue packet and stuff Oreos in my mouth. I'd do that with Hide 'N' Seek, but something about the white transfatty sandwich cream is very off-putting.

These Cheesecake Truffle Balls? I love. Blatant hypocrisy, I know, especially after that holier-than-thou speech about transfats but I belong to the well-established category of hypocrites who skip a meal and eat Nutella in lieu of the saved calories. Fun fact # 56.

This recipe needs about 1.75 long packs of Oreos. Buy two packs, take two cookies out and give it to the people hovering over you as you're cooking. That should keep them busy for a while.

You want to know why you'll have people "acting like they've never seen food" around? (Quoting mum). Maybe because of the half-kilogram's worth of chocolate laying around, as part of the mise en place.

Please use chocolate that you actually enjoy eating. No "Cooking Chocolate" from the frozen goods aisle or candy melts. Use good quality chocolate, preferably with 44% Cacao content. If you're skimping on calories or money, just bookmark this for another day?

Also, try not to eat too much of the prep work, yes? Being a hypocrite, again. Nom Nom Nom.

Oreo Cheesecake Truffles:

Recipe source: Bakerella

Ingredients:

1.75 long packets of Cadbury Oreos (the 137 g pack)

80 g cream cheese

Miscellaneous chocolate for coating

Method:

In a mixie or food processor, blitz the oreos, with the cream-centre and all, until you have a sandy mixture.

Transfer to a large bowl. Crush with the back of a spoon, if any biscuitty particles remain.

Fold in the softened cream cheese. You'll have a mixture that looks like this. If not, add in a little more cream cheese.

Form the mixture into bite-sized balls. Place these balls on a foil-lined or wax-paper lined tray. Freeze for about half an hour, so the shape holds.

In a small microwave-safe bowl, break up the chocolate into chunks. Make sure there isn't ONE SINGLE DROP of water in the bowl or the spoon you're using.

Run the bowl in the microwave for around a minute, then remove and stir in order to melt the chocolate properly. If there are little chunks, don't worry, it'll all melt in the residual heat.

Using two forks, dip the frozen cookie ball in the pool of melted chocolate until it's fully coated.

Transfer the ball back into the cookie sheet or cupcake liners. Let it fully dry and harden.



If you've used a toothpick, this is what will happen.



Refrigerate (do not freeze), covered, until you're ready to eat it!

Make sure it's hidden in some obscure cul-de-sac of the refrigerator. Especially if you have random toddlers running around (by that I mean your nephew and miscellaneous family), they will steal it, despite running a 102 degree fever.

This should make up for the Creme Caramel and the Dulce de Leche, I hope. Pretend I said some corny parting greeting, along the lines of "Dessert in a Minute!" or similar.