Recipe #3 - Chocolate Chip Cookies.

S has been asking me for ages to make chocolate chip cookies.  He loves the soft, gooey kind and those are my favourites too, although to be fair I will eat any kind of chocolate chip cookie.  They are all delicious!

I decided I'd bake some this morning; S is on the early at work and I thought it'd be a nice surprise for when he got home.  I'd bought some chocolate chips earlier in the week and thought I had all the other necessary ingredients already.  Only, when I searched the internet for a recipe, I realised I had no vanilla essence and no brown sugar.  Yikes.

Luckily, I found this recipe and thought that I'd give it a whirl without the vanilla, just to see how it would turn out.  Here's a quick recap of the ingredients and the directions:

You will need 1 cup of softened butter, 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, 2 eggs, 2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 2 cups of chocolate chips.  If you have vanilla extract, you'll need 2 teaspoons of that too.

Before I started measuring and stirring, I preheated my oven to 375 °F.  I don't have a mixer so I muscled through and creamed together my butter and sugar by hand.  Then I mixed in the eggs (here is where you would add your vanilla!) and, because I am lazy, rather than mix all the dry ingredients separately, I just added them to the wet stuff.  Shh, don't tell anyone.

I added the flour a bit at a time to make sure it all got incorporated, then folded in my chocolate chips.  It was at this point that I realised I didn't have a flat baking tray.  Who doesn't have a flat baking tray?  Me, unbelievably.  So I figured I could use my cupcake/muffin tin instead.

Because my oven is a bit rubbish, it took about 18 minutes for my cookie-muffins to cook properly, though the recommended baking time is between 8-11 minutes, just until they're lightly browned on top.  I left them to sit for 5 minutes while I did the washing up and then popped them out onto the cooling rack.

I'm rather pleased with how they turned out!  They taste like cookies but they look like little chocolate chip cupcakes!  I think putting them in the muffin tin altered the texture a little, since they're not chewy but more like a cake.  Nonetheless, they are pretty good, although I'll be investing in a baking tray before my next attempt.

Have you baked anything new lately?  What are your plans for the weekend and Memorial Day?  I hope you're having a wonderful Saturday!

Love, K.