Ever wondered what to do when the baking urge is strong but you forgot to bring your eggs to room temperature first? (Answer:plunge them into a cup of warm tap water.) Or how magazine food stylists get their cookies perfectly round? (Read on!)
In her cookbookFirst,Cream the Butter and Sugar, baking enthusiast (andMasterChef:Back to Win champ) Emelia Jackson tackles these burning issues,sharing her favourite baking recipes and a heaped helping of pro tips to help you become the best baker you can be.
Here are some of her best cookie recipes. Get cracking!
My criteria for an amazing chocolate-chip cookie is fairly simple:crisp and chewy texture,overloaded with quality chocolate chips and,most importantly,not sickly sweet. I like the chocolate to do the sweet talking,with just a faint touch of molasses from the brown sugar to really amp up the ante. This is one of those recipes that you'll go back for,time and time again. Adapted from the world-famousNew York Times recipe,I've simplified without compromising the final flavour and texture of the cookies.
INGREDIENTS
METHOD
I recommend eating the cookies with a cup of tea or coffee to ensure you can handle eating six in a sitting. We don't want that"back of the throat"sugar build-up to hold you back from full enjoyment!
Makes 40
Note:
You can refrigerate the dough for anywhere between 12 and 36 hours (or even longer if you wish,and you can even freeze the rolled dough balls). My general recommendation is 24 hours. If you just can't help yourself,you can bake a few cookies immediately to get that satisfactory hit and refrigerate the rest of the dough for the following day. Run your own experiments with timing and decide whether or not you think it makes a difference. The dough will be really firm once chilled,so you can roll the dough balls in advance and refrigerate them,ready to bake.
Mix it up!
Leave out the dark chocolate chips and you have a great base recipe for any flavoured drop cookie. Here are some suggestions:
White chocolate,sour cherry and pistachio cookies
Add 350g white chocolate chips,120g dried sour cherries and 120g roasted pistachios. Drizzle with a little melted white chocolate and sprinkle with chopped pistachios.
Blueberry,lemon and white chocolate cookies
Add 400g white chocolate chips,60g freeze-dried blueberries and the grated zest of 2 lemons.
Milk chocolate hazelnut crunch cookies
Add 350g milk chocolate chips,150g roughly chopped roasted hazelnuts and 50g crispy dark chocolate pearls (such as Valrhona,available from specialist food stores).
Raspberry and white chocolate cookies
Add 60g freeze-dried raspberries and 350g white or ruby chocolate chips.
Hazelnut-stuffed chocolate-chip cookies
Refrigerate (or freeze) a jar of chocolate hazelnut spread (such as Nutella) for 30 minutes to firm it up. Flatten each ball of chocolate-chip dough into a disc and fill it with a heaped teaspoon of the firm chocolate spread. Wrap the dough into a ball and make sure it's completely sealed before baking.
Cereal chocolate-chip cookies
Keep the chocolate chips and add 180g mini-marshmallows and 60g cornflakes.
I don't know what it is about an oat and raisin cookie that does it for me. Maybe it's the toasty oats and buttery goodness. Maybe it's the pops of sweetness from the raisins through the almost savoury flavour of the cookie. Maybe I've convinced myself that they're OK to eat for breakfast because,really,they're just the solid version of porridge. Whatever it is,I am obsessed with these chunky oat and raisin cookies,my numero uno go-to when I'm feeling like a tasty little afternoon morsel.
Makes20
When shortbread is good,it's really good – buttery,melting in your mouth,with pops of salt throughout. Adding a little cornflour or rice flour to the dough really helps achieve the sandy texture that you're looking for in a home-made shortbread,but you can replace it with the same quantity of plain flour. Experiment and see which texture you prefer.
Add a couple of handfuls of chopped walnuts to the dough before you roll it out – delicious!
Makes8 wedges
This is my take on the alfajores cookie that we all know and love but can't pronounce with any level of confidence. It's essentially a sandwich cookie consisting of two vanilla shortbread cookies held together with a thick slather of dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is a milk caramel that is readily available in supermarkets. You can make it yourself at home (see below),but why not take the easy route and buy the stuff? Any leftovers can be eaten with a spoon,directly from the jar.
You can substitute the dulce de leche with any jam you love or a chocolate hazelnut spread (such as Nutella).
Makes 22
While you can readily buy dulce de leche at the supermarket,it's easy to make at home. It just requires a tin of sweetened condensed milk and a few spare hours. You can cook multiple tins at a time and store them in the pantry for later use.
Makes400g
Let me set the scene … You're baking cookies from your favourite cookbook (First,Cream the Butter and Sugar, I'll assume). You glance at the picture of perfectly round cookies,chocolate chips sitting in perfect position on top. You decide that you're going to roll your cookies as round as you can. They will be perfect.
Fast-forward 20 minutes or so. You pull your tray of cookies out of the oven and … they're not round and they've spread all over the place. What the?! Well,I am here to save the day. Here is how I (and most bakers) achieve those perfectly round cookies,every time.
And here's another tip:perfectly placed chocolate chips can be added on top of cookies as soon as you pull them out of the oven. They will melt with the heat but still hold their form and reset as the cookies cool. Pretty as a picture.
I like to allow cookies to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing them from the baking tray to allow them to firm up and retain their shape.
Cookies,like most baked goods,are best eaten within a couple of days of baking. However,they can usually be stored in an airtight container for up to 10 days.
This is an edited extract fromFirst,Cream the Butter and Sugar by Emelia Jackson,photography by Armelle Habib. Murdoch Books RRP $59.99.
Continue thisseries
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