What's Left..

You'd think a plain cookie with a few chocolate chips folded into the mixture would be a simple matter. It's not. It's never difficult to make, just difficult to get right. 

~ Nigella Lawson

These were what I was left with. Three cookies. No more, no less. And even those were already booked by a friend. So basically, I got nothing left. Really. Well, I guess that just sums up how good they really were.

One typical Ramadhan day: baking in silence. Only sound was a qori's doing tilawah of Al Qur'an verses from my tablet. Some other day was Opick singing praising Allah. A friend texted me to order wholewheat chocolate chips cookies. Only she didn't want it to be wholewheat. I was reluctant to fulfill order outside my repertoire, in fact, I almost always reject any order outside my repertoire. But she said it was for her son. He likes the classic ones, "Good Time kinda cookie..," she said. That was my soft spot. I would do it for her son, just like I would do anything for my nieces and nephews. *please don't take advantage of me*

First time I baked this was in 2011, when I was stressed out with 600 pages translation work, in the middle of the night. Ya-ha, I baked it compulsively in the middle of the night. It was so good, I made it several times throughout the year.

I'm kinda like Nigella. As simple as it is, I've tried many recipes of chocolate chips cookies and only this recipe brings me to the end of my journey. Not too crisp, not too chewy. Not too soft, not too crumbly. It has a little bit of everything. Fudgy chewiness with an edge of crisp bites. Perfect.

Mind you, I tweaked the recipe a little bit. But following the original recipe won't fail you either. Just a matter of personal preference. The recipe is fool-proof enough to bear some alteration.



Classic Chocolate Chips Cookies
adapted from Nigella's Kitchen

170 g soft unsalted butter (original: 10 Tbsp, or app. 150 g)
1/3 c palm sugar + 1/3 c sugar (original: 2/3 c packed light brown sugar)
1/2 c caster sugar (this is optional for me, I like it less sweet. Sometimes I add it, sometimes I don't)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, refrigerator-cold
1 egg yolk, refrigerator-cold
2 c all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
300 g dark chocolate chips (original: 326 g milk chocolate chips) --> I use whatever I have on hand. The cookies in the photo used dark couverture chocolate flakes and buttons

How-to:

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degree Celsius. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment, or in my case, silicon mat.
2. Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Put the sugars into a bowl, pour the slightly cooled melted butter over them and beat together.
3. Beat in the vanilla, the cold egg and cold egg yolk until your mixture is light and creamy, resembling cake batter.
4. Slowly mix in the flour and baking soda until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Scoop the cookie dough into 1/4 cup ice-cream scoop and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, plopping the cookies down about 3-4 cm apart. Press each cookie mound with your finger tips to flatten it slightly. If you need to make these in several batches, keep the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge between batches.
6. Bake for 12 minutes in the prepared oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted (depending on your oven). Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

My friend called me in the afternoon on the day she got the cookies. "It's gone already," she delivered the news. "He loves them so much."

That made my day. Alhamdulillah.

Happy baking, everyone. Idul Fitri is right in front of our noses. I mean, already! Before the dust settles, and in case I don't have time and energy to post again until that day, once again I plead guilty to every faults I made. In words, in act, anything. It was mine and mine alone. I asked for the mercy of Allah and I hope you would forgive me, too.

Eid Mubarak.