Nuttalicious chocolate chip cookies

makes about 20 smallish cookies

 

·       113g unsalted butter 

·        1/4c white sugar

·        1/2c light brown sugar

·        1 egg yolk + 1 egg (you can freeze the white for another use) or 2 egg yolks if  you want your cookies more dense and chewy

·        3/4c plain white flour

·        1/2c wholemeal/wholegrain/whole wheat flour

·        3/8tsp baking soda

·        pinch salt

·        1/2c (around 100g) dark chocolate, chopped finely*

·        optional: 1/4c finely shredded coconut, and 1/4c walnuts or other favorite nut, chopped and toasted

* Aim to chop them the size of regular chocolate chips, and use a large sharp chef’s knife or cleaver. Chopping them yourself is the secret to ethereal chocolate chip cookies, because you get lots of little bits of chocolate all throughout the cookie. Once you try it you’ll never buy chips again.

Preheat oven to 175C (350F), with a rack centred. Grease two baking trays.

Once the oven is hot, scatter coconut and nut pieces on a single layer in a roasting tray and bake for 5 minutes until coconut is nice and golden. Set aside to cool.

While coconut is toasting, brown your butter by heating it in a medium sized saucepan on medium heat. First it will start to bubble – start mixing with a silicon spatula or wooden spoon, scraping the bottom constantly. Eventually it will start to foam and you’ll spy little brown flecks appearing through the foam. Remove from heat immediately and let cool until you can touch the pan without burning yourself. Stir in sugar. The mixture will be grainy.

Beat in egg yolk and egg until the mixture is uniform. Sift over flours, baking soda and salt. Mix in until just incorporated, then stir through the chocolate, walnuts and coconut. The mixture should just barely be a dough, it’s meant to be quite wet but you should be able to shape into balls with one hand. I made mine walnut sized.

Place balls 1″ apart on greased baking trays, and bake about 10-12 minutes until the edges are just starting to look darker than the tops, and cracks form on top. The centre should not spring back when poked – they will almost feel runny.

Cool on baking tray for five minutes before removing with a metal spatula to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Note : if you’re not that keen on nuts, you can easily omit the walnuts and coconut and you’ll have a dang easy chocolate chip recipe that still has a slight nutty flavour without any actual nuts in.