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! :)

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been on the quest for the quintessential chewy chocolate chip cookie for a while now. Simply because i am a sucker for the humble home baked cookie. Be it with beurre noisette or choc chips, the cookie is the way to go for me. Not just any cookie, mind you, i am pretty picky that way. I have my favs and ones i would'nt care two hoots about. That said, i love the chewy, thin versions with chocolate chips. I luuuve the single chocolate we get at Subway, they are chewy, thin, big, not overly dense and so packed with flavor, one is almost always never enough for me.

There are chocolate chip cookie recipes galore on the internet. Many tried. Some tested. few liked. very few loved and treasured. There have been quite a few hits and misses in the quest for the chewy chocolate chip cookie and then i chanced upon this recipe. This comes pretty darn close to my definition of the ultimate malted chocolate chip cookie, whaddyathink?

 (Recipe adapted from here with slight changes. Makes around 15 large cookies)

-100 g unsalted melted butter
-1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
-1/4 cup granulated sugar
-1 large egg
-1/4 cup malted milk powder
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon salt
-1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

-Preheat oven to 170 C.

-Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

-Combine the melted butter and sugars using a hand held blender for about 2 minutes. Add the egg and continue to mix. Add the vanilla extract and blend. Now add the malted milk powder and blend.

-Add the flour mix and mix it ensuring it is not over mixed but completely incorporated.

-Fold in the chocolate chips.

-Scoop out the dough using an ice cream scoop onto the baking tray. Drop the dough a minimum of 3 inches apart (they will expand). Bake for 9-10 minutes or till the edges are light brown and centers puffy. Let it sit on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool.

On another note, the blog got this award for Storytelling from Sonali of the brilliant blog Only Fish Recipes. Thanks Sonali for the honor! :) so i'm going to have to share a totally random fact about myself and here goes: For all my love for dogs, i was once (and not too far long back) attacked and bitten by a very aggressive street dog. I was rushed to the Manipal casualty. i shall not go into the sordid details, but I had to obviously go through the entire gamut of injections that follow such incidents. Suffice to say there was a phase when i had very sore arms from all the injections and when i thought i would never get back to loving dogs again. it must have been the shock. 'Cos that lasted all of two weeks i think. I got back to coochy cooing almost every friendly dog i see in no time. i also started educating myself about dog psychology. i now have the most precious dog in the world who is one of the most important people in my life. she has some stellar doggie friends that include street dogs, show dogs, pie dogs, beautiful dogs and weird role playing dogs: all of whom i adore and have a great time with. All is well with the world again! :)

As is customary, i am passing this award onto 5 other blogger friends whose stories move me in one way or another:

Turmeric and Spice
The Harried Cook
Look Who's Cooking Too
Spoonful of Delight
Collaborative Curry

A lot can indeed happen over coffee

It hit early this time. I was feeling ditzy, restless and my mind was wandering constantly, particularly when i was supposed to be drawing up reports. Not a good sign. Mid week crisis had set in early this week. It was just Tuesday and I had to bake.

and so i decided to dare a bit. I have never been a coffee/tea person. I like my milk as milk, thank you. I always have. and i have seen souls hooked to their cuppa. I know plenty of them. enough to make me wonder. Mind you, the surplus of Baristas, Coffee Days, Cafe Pascuccis, Gloria Jeans and Brios have ensured that i have nothing against the cappuccino and the mocha in its many forms. Its just that I have never been hooked per se.

So i decided to tread on previously untrodden waters and test the mojo of coffee by trying this espresso-chocolate chip cookie recipe. I was pleasantly surprised. I quite like it. :)

With many adaptations, this is the recipe i followed:

Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookie

2 cups flour

155 grams unsalted butter

1whole egg

1 egg yolk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 1/2 tablespoons instant coffee powder (i used nescafe)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Makes 24 cookies

How you go about it:

- Line a baking tray with baking paper.

- In a dry bowl, whsk together the flour, baking powder, salt and espresso powder and set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugars till light and fluffy
- Gradually add the egg and yolk, one at a time and blend well. Follow that up with the vanilla extract
- Add the flour mixture to the wet mix and blend just so it is all mixed well.
- Fold in the chocolate chips

- Refrigerate the cookie mix for half an half an hour so that it firms up a bit, enough to aid you when scooping it up.

-Take the mix out of the refrigerator after half an hour, scoop up using an ice cream scoop, drop onto the baking try and flatten out. Drop the scoops with space of half an inch to spare.

-Bake for seventeen to twenty minutes or till dark golden brown and the sides begin to darken or tad longer if u like it a little crisp.

-Take out of the oven and let cool on a rack before wolfing it down with or without a glass of milk (hot or cold!)

Am a fan now! :)

P.S: A lot can indeed happen over coffee!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Did you ever feel like you had to, absolutely had to have that chocolate chip cookie from Subway, and when you got there, it was'nt there? Dang!! but you had to had to have it!


What better way around it than to make your own chocolate chip cookie! :D

And that is exactly how i ended up baking this batch of heavenly, fudgy, chocolate-chip-y (if that' even a word) chocolate chip cookies at 11.36 pm on a friday night. Oh, the joy of it all! :)


Needless to say, we love our chocolate...














in any form...









or shape....











or size...











The recipe i followed was for chocolate chunk cookies, but i used chocolate chips and went easy on the choc chips. They turned out just fine. :P ... You'll find the recipe here: http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateChunkCookies.html

To make a batch of 6 large cookies, you will need:
1 cup flour
Little more than 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda
A pinch of salt
85 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
65 grams granulated white sugar
70 grams light brown sugar
1 small egg
1 small egg yolk
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chunks or chocolate chips


How we go about it:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

In a bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, viz: flour, baking soda, and salt.

With the help of a hand blender, beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (about 2 - 3 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add the whole egg and egg yolk, continuing to beat until well combined. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat just until incorporated. (You do not want to over beat!) Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Stir in the chocolate chunks.

Form the dough into balls, using 1/4 cup (55 grams) for each cookie. (If you find the dough to e too runny, keep it in the freezer for ten min or so). Place the balls of dough on the baking sheet and gently flatten each ball of dough into a 2 1/2 inch disc.

Bake the cookies for about 15 - 17 minutes, paying heed to rotate the baking sheet halfway through the baking time. The cookies are done when they are light golden brown in color and just set. They will still seem a little soft but they will firm up as they cool.





Happy cooki-eing!!