Cookie cravings

Last night I couldn't stop thinking about cookies - more specifically, chocolate chip cookies. Don't know why but I got all twitchy around 10pm last night and had to make a batch. So, with my favourite baking book in hand, I marched into the kitchen like a woman possessed and this was the result:

Crispy round the edges and a little bit chewy in the middle, with big chocolate chunks melting slightly into the vanilla-scented dough... Just what I was after. (I was going to say, 'Just what the doctor ordered,' but I don't think that cookies are an approved medical treatment. Yet.)

Mr. B waited for the shortest amount of time possible after they came out of the oven before crumbling warm cookies over homemade vanilla icecream (thanks again, David Lebovitz). Oh wow, that was good.

He was supposed to take the rest round to his mum's house today on the way to work (Mr. B, not Mr Lebovitz) - but the tub is still on the kitchen worktop. I think this means he doesn't want to share. And, secretly, neither do I...

Chocolate chip cookies from Baking - From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan
Makes about 45 cookies

You'll need:

2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
225g (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
12 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips (about 2 cups)
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper

2. Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda.

3. Working with a stand or hand-held mixer, beat the butter until smooth (about 1 minute). Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes or so, until well blended.

4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each egg goes in. Beat in the vanilla too.
5. Using a rubber spatula (or reduce the mixer speed to low), add the dry ingredients in 3 portions, mixing only until each addition is incorporated. Then add the chocolate chips and the nuts.

6. Spoon the dough in slightly rounded tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each spoonful.

7. Bake the cookies - one sheet at a time - and rotating the sheet at the midway point - for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are brown around the edges - they may still be a little soft in the middle.

8. Pull the sheet from the oven and allow the cookies to rest for 1 minute, then carefully, using a wide metal spatula, transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

Cook's notes

Doh, I forgot to add the nuts. That's what you get for late-night baking.

I used a mixture of plain chocolate and Green & Black's Mayan Gold - a spicy orange chocolate that added a little fillip to the flavour.

A slightly rounded tablespoon of dough may not look like much on the baking sheet but be warned - these babies spread. I added a bit more dough to the first batch in the oven, convinced that the amount specified would produce teeny cookies. I ended up with several mutant 'figure-of-8'-shaped ones instead. Still tasted good though :-)

Dorie notes that the dough stores well in the fridge for 3 days or that you can freeze it. Even in full cookie-craving mode there's no way we could get through a whole batch. (Forty-five in one sitting? Maybe another day...) So I've taken her advice by freezing individual portions on a tray and bagging them when solid, ready for the next time I want cookies late at night.