Procrastibaking: Cookies

</Alex Armstrong impression>

Today’s recipe is one which has been passed down through my family for generations. It apparently was created at some point in the 18^th century, and has been modified by everyone who has made it. However, not one single person has actually written down the ingredients – we’ve all been taught along the lines of “add about this much flour, until it looks like this”. So, as part of my contribution to the proud tradition of modifying this recipe, I worked out the ingredients.

Thomas Family Choc Chip Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (250 g) unsalted butter (regular butter will do)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon milk
2 cups (500g) chocolate chips(at minimum. You can add more if you like)

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2. Microwave butter for 30 seconds, stir and set aside.

3. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla on medium-high speed until creamy.

4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add milk and beat until combined.

5.Gradually sift in flour, baking soda and salt. Beat until just combined (Over mixing will lead to tough cookies)

6.Stir in chocolate chips.

7. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.

8.Place small globs of chilled dough onto a baking tray (baking paper is still your friend!). Leave a fair amount of space between globs, as the cookies tend to spread a fair bit while cooking.

9. Bake for 10 minutes or until light brown. Transfer cookies to cooling racks (careful, they’ll be hot and soft!)

10. Before adding more dough to the warm baking tray, place tray in freezer for 5-7 minutes to cool.

11. Repeat until all the dough is cooked.

Once again, photos!

(No cameraman this time, only your dear ~~humble~~ blogger)

(some of) the ingredients!

Chopped butter!

Melted butter!

More melted butter!

SUGAR!

The unmixed version of the sugar/butter mix

Mixing!

More mixing!

MORE MIXING! (This is nearly the colour it should be)

As you can see, it's fairly solid

Eggs, donated by the Drage family chickens (Thanks Sam!)

It's not rotten, so into the mix it goes!

The cookie dough. (That white powder is plain flour, I swear!)

Mixed cookie dough!

The best bit - adding the choc chips!

Mixed in choc chips - yum!

More photos of the bowl of dough. This is what it looked like fresh out of the freezer.

The cookies!

(Forgive me for the appalling pun, I have had far too much exposure to them over the past few days. They are contagious, I tell you!)

Anyway, welcome to the first instalment of procrastibaking. Tonight’s recipe is adapted from from “Cakes and cookies”, by Malcolm Long.

Iced Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

Cookies:

200 g butter

200 g caster sugar

2 eggs

2 cups plain flour, plus extra *

Vanilla essence (optional)

Icing:

Icing sugar (lots)

Hot water

Food dye (optional, but they look boring with just white icing)

*I ended up having to add nearly a whole cup extra, so have plenty of flour to begin with! You also need to flour a board, rolling pin and your hands.

Recipe:

(Makes 20-30 large cookies)

1: Preheat the oven to 180 c.

2: Melt the butter slightly in the microwave. Depending on your microwave, this should take around 10 – 30 seconds. You don’t want liquid butter, but you want it to be slightly melted and soft. If you do over melt the butter, don’t worry. This will just mean you need to beat it longer.

3: Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. This may take some time, depending on the ambient temperature and how soft your butter was to start with.

4: Add the eggs, and beat well.

(pro-tip: if you crack the eggs one at a time into a small bowl or mug first, you can prevent adding rotten eggs to your mix. Thus, you crack the egg into said mug, see if it’s rotten, remove any shell fragments, add it to the butter/sugar mix, and repeat with the other egg.)

5: If you are adding vanilla essence, this is the time to add it. I used about two teaspoons, but you can use however much you want to. Just remember, that stuff’s strong. In this case, less can be more.

(Pro-tip the second: you want this mix to be as beaten as possible now, before the flour is added. If you beat it heaps after you add the flour, you will get very tough cookies!)

6: Sift flour into the creamed mixture. Using your hands, mix it into a smooth dough. If it is very sticky, as mine was, add a little more flour. Then refrigerate the dough, still in the mixing bowl, for 15-30 min (the softer the dough, the longer the refrigeration time. I had to refrigerate for 30 min, but the last time I made this mix it took only 15.)

(pro-tip the third: flour your hands before you mix! Also remember to flour your rolling pin, otherwise the dough can be very hard to get off)

7: Roll the dough out onto a floured surface until roughly half a centimetre thick. Using either a sharp knife or cookie cutter shapes, cut out cookies and place on a tray (remember, baking paper is your friend here!). Make sure to leave space between the cookies, because they’ll expand a little in the oven.

8: Bake in the oven for 10 min or until golden brown. It took me 12 min, but my oven’s really quite old.

9: Remove from tray, and cool on wire racks. You will most probably need to make several batches of cookies.

Your cookies are done!

Now, if you want to ice them, let them cool completely before icing them or the icing will melt off.

Water Based Icing:

1: get about a of cup icing sugar.

2: add small amounts of hot water and mix. Keep adding water until the mix is a thickish paste. If it gets too runny, add more icing sugar.

3: divide into small bowls, tea cups, or mugs (any sort of container will do, really). Add food colouring to each bowl, mixing until you reach a colour you like.

4: Ice the cookies. The icing will set quickly, so work fast!

(and now, Photos!)