Oatmeal-beurre noisette-chocolate chip cookies

i guess you could call me a cookie monster. i love experimenting with cookie dough to get the desired texture and taste. i love them chunky, chewy, chocolatey chunk-y. I love them buttery and french. i love how they resonate hazelnuts in every bite. i adore how they look (not to mention how easy they are to whip up)! love them as a snack and as a midnight meal. it was only natural i would want to make a deal out of it for my birthday too. and hence these Oatmeal-beurre noisette-chocolate chip cookies. they have the most amazing texture: slightly sturdy, slightly chewy, generously sprinkled with chocolate chips and the magic ingredients, oats, and of course, beurre noisette!

-1 1/4 cup oats blitzed to a powder (it needn't be super fine)

-1 cup AP Flour

-1/2 cup brown sugar

-1/2 cup regular sugar

- 1 egg

-112 g butter (divided)

-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

-180 g chocolate chips/chunks

-pinch of salt

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

(Makes 20 large cookies - Recipe adapted from here)
Onto the beurre noisette first: Take one half of the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan and melt it over a low heat. It will foam up, then some white solids will separate and sediment at the bottom of the pan. Keep an eye on it and wait till the milk solids turn a light brown; nutty color. (Be careful it does not burn) Once it has reached that stage, take it off the flame and mix it in with the rest of the butter:
-Mix together the oat meal powder, salt, flour, baking powder and baking soda and set aside:
-Cream together the butter, beurre noisette and sugars. Add the egg and continue to mix till combined, then add the vanilla extract and mix.
-Mix in the flour mix and combine. Fold in the chocolate chips or chunks. The original recipe called for refrigerating the dough for an hour for chewy cookies - *see notes below.
-Butter and line cookie tray with baking paper. Preheat oven to 180 C.
-Scoop out medium sized balls of dough, flatten slightly to get a rough disc and place on the baking tray with about 2 inches spacing between each dough ball. Bake for 12-15 minutes, taking care to rotate the tray halfway through. Do not allow the cookies to turn very dark, just pull them out after the stipulated time. Allow to cool before transferring to a cooling rack.
-I generally like my cookies warm. This one tasted exceptionally yum when warm, but tasted almost as good the next day as well! What a winner!!


*Notes: I refrigerated my dough for half an hour or so and made sure my dough was only a bit cool when i popped it into the oven. The temperature of the dough affects the texture and composition of the end-result cookie majorly. Like i said, my dough was just cool and my cookies turned out chunky-chewy and crumbly.
i was in a mood to indulge myself (hey, it was my birthday) and added lindt 75 % for my choco chunks. ah, the bliss! Goes to show just how much of a difference good chocolate can make.

P.S: i'm on an instagram trip, thanks to the better half and the new ipad. am lovin' it!! (as is evident from the pics in this post and if you are following me on instagram)
P.P.S: i got the Zumbo book from my darling sister 'cos Mr. Adriano Zumbo is the flavor of the month/year for us and i'm loving his quirky style, sheer brilliance, and goofy smile. dazzled ought to explain it, really. :) Also, isn't his motto cool? ''Eat sweet and keep baking'', indeed!!

Truly a very blessed birthday! :)

Genius Pick-me-up: Granola bars

 It is no secret that i enjoy a snack with Oreo while mindlessly recounting office stories to her when i get back home after a fricking long and borderline murderous cab ride after office. And that snack is important to us. It's mostly something that does not go down well with my ethics of 'minimum junk food'. So to ease that conscience and without compromising on my sweet tooth craving, i put together some of my favorite ingredients and made a truly genius piece of pick-me-up. and named them granola bars. They already exist in the supermarkets aisles here in India BUT as it turns out, i do not like them. They are saccharine sweet, sticky for the wrong reasons and if i did'nt mention it already, excessively sweet! Not my kinda granola bar. Hence my own version.

My own version is egg-less (this is a first! Yay!), AP flour free (also a first, yay yay!), got goodies like almonds and honey plus it's got minimal sugar and butter. Just mix 'em up and pop into the oven. Really. The simplicity will blow you away. The result, better still! Thought balloon: Maybe i'm getting on the 'eat healthier at-least-once-in-a-while' bandwagon. Bet my mom will be thrilled.

The dry ingredients:
Oat flour - 1/3 cup*
Oats - 3/4 cup
Crushed Corn flakes - 1/4 cup
Puffed rice: 1/8 cup
Slivered Almonds: 1/3 cup
Whole almonds: 1/4 cup
Raisins: 1/4 cup
Chocolate chips: a handful
Salt: 1/4 teaspoon
Cinnamon powder: 1/8 teaspoon
*You can make the oat flour by simply blitzing in a mixer 1/3 cup oats for less than half a minute! :)

Not so dry ingredients:
Brown sugar: 1/4 cup
White sugar: 1/4 cup
Honey: 1/4 cup
Butter: 3 tablespoons
Water: 2 tablespoons

How you go about it:

Preheat the oven to 170 C.

Line a tin with aluminium foil and make sure the sides overhang. Butter the foil.

Melt the sugars and butter over a low flame. Add in the honey and water. Take it off the flame once the mixture starts to boil. Keep aside.

Sift together all the dry ingredients.

Make a well in the middle of the ingredients, add the sugar/honey syrup into the dry ingredients and mix as well as you can so that you wet all the dry ingredients and everything is evenly dispersed.

Bake in a preheated oven for 30 min at 165 C or till the colors changes to brown. Pop out of the oven and let cool completely in the tin. Remove from the tin using the overhanging paper on the sides. Cut into even bars and enjoy!

P.S: The target audience here is the people who make the lousy granola bars for the supermarkets, people who love to eat on the go, people who love to snack on something while doing chores, people who pack snack boxes for little ones or selves, to be mothers, already mothers, fathers, bosses, teachers, grand folks... you get the drift right. It tastes really good as is, with cold yogurt or with hot milk, when you are pooped, after a gym workout, a brain numbing meeting or after giving your dog a bath. It's also a great thing to cut through the monotony of deep fried goodies. The possibilities are endless, truly!