chocolate chip cookies

tried to make the swiss roll again, but even with 2 hours of whipping the eggs hardly inflated. decided to give up, and make some chocolate chip cookies. these are amazing. the pictures should say it all.

the batter mixes up really easy, although i started with room temperature butter instead of cold, as instructed. but that was alright, it made for easy creaming with sugar. just in case you cant see how packed the dough is, here's a close-up.


there are about 200g worth of chocolate chunks (which i cut from bars), and 130g of chopped toasted cashew nuts in there. i cannot stress how chunky the dough was, and how those ingredients can't make for anything but a brilliant cookie.



you want to make 5cm balls, though i just used my measuring scale to make 55g balls, which yielded me about 16. next time i'll make them smaller; these cookies are so rich you really dont want such a large cookie. but with cold milk, they are brilliant.



as you can see, the cookies are rather large and puffed when out of the oven. when i baked the first batch, i had made it straight from the bowl (using rtp butter as mentioned before), so the cookies spread large and thin. thereafter i chilled the bowl in the fridge between batches, since i could only do 4 a batch, which resulted in a stiffer batter that did not spread out as much in the oven, and were puffier, as above. if you want a thinner, larger cookie, then use it straight from room temperature. otherwise, remember to chill it!

personally i prefer using a chilled batter because i love chewy cookies, although it was really nice thin as well. just a note: if you want chocolate that melts through the cookie, instead of a visible and distinct chip, then chop up your own chocolate. for cookies that spread this much, i find that self-chopped chunks make a better idea since the chocolate spreads out throughout. it's to your own preference, of course.

the original recipe calls for pecans etc, but i chose cashew nuts for their butteriness. chop them coarsely because this cookie needs a bit of texture to keep from being too cloying. the amount of brown sugar makes it moist and chewy, and the cookie has kept for 3 days now, to no ill effect.

try it out! mix in your favorite chocolate, dark or milk, and your favorite nuts. i would say though, no dried fruit in here, and not too much dark chocolate. i used a mix of 70% milk chocolate and 30% dark. it's a simple, comforting cookie, not the sophisticated sort and you want the sweetness and smooth feel of the milk chocolate to enhance it (: