Milk chocolate chip and gems cookies

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For most desserts, there’s a way to eat it. Let’s say a cheesecake or a pudding, typically eaten after a meal. You’d slice a piece, put it on a plate, pick up a fork and eat, neatly polishing it off until the entire slice is gone and you’ve drifted into dessert heaven. Now you’re done and it’s likely that you’ll put back your plate, and get on with your day.

But cookies are different. Cookies don’t demand the sophistication of putting them on a plate or the civility of cleaning up after.  Eat them directly from the jar or box, nibble at them while you watch a movie, scarf them down while you work on a stressful project, or read a thrilling book. Cookies are fuss-free, anytime snackage food which makes them one of the most comforting foods ever because it is completely acceptable to eat them anytime your sweet tooth demands..

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I ate my friend Neimat’s most delicious milk chocolate chip and gems cookies at 3am on a random friday night and i am not exaggerating when i say that they were the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. Maybe it was the 3am sugar itch or maybe just the fact that chocolate chip cookies are always a good idea anyway, but they were seriously ridiculously good. I might add that Neimat is a trained chef but her chocolate chip cookies reek of that delicious, homely comforting flavour that chocolate chip cookies are meant to have.

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I know most recipes ask for bittersweet chocolate and I’m a huge fan of 70 per cent but in defence of milk chocolate, nothing can replicate childlike flavours like the combination of unapologetically sweet milk chocolate chips in a salty-sweet cookie dough. PLUS GEMS! 90s kids will know. These cookies are soft with chewy edges, bursting with gooey milk chocolate and the crunch of gems. Basically quite a perfect bunch of textures.

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This recipe is an easy drop and bake recipe and doesn’t require rolling out cookie dough. I suggest using a cookie scoop or small ice cream scoop to get even sized cookies. Also, seriously seriously invest in good quality milk chocolate chips. I use

Ghirardelli (the blue bag)

but if you don’t find those, 

Choko La

also makes really nice ones! Here is the recipe:

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2 1/2 cups flour 

1 cup brown sugar 

1/2 cup powdered sugar 

2 eggs 

200 g butter (soft, not melted)

1 tsp vanilla 

1 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp sea salt 

2 cups milk chocolate chips 

1 cup gems 

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Preheat your oven to 180 ˚ C and line a baking tray with an un-greased cookie sheet/ silpat or butter paper. 

In a bowl, mix the flour and baking soda and sea salt

Beat the butter and both sugars in a large bowl 

One at a time, add the eggs and then the vanilla 

Now add the flour mixture one spoonful at a time and mix until a cookie batter is formed 

When done, add the 2 cups of milk chocolate chips and the gems and mix it into the batter with a spatula 

Use a cookie scoop to spoon out round cookie batter onto the cookie sheet. 

Bake for about 8 - 10 minutes.

Let them cool and then eat! 

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Notes: 

The batter should be 

sticky

 - not runny, but not doughy either. If it is too liquid/runny, add more flour.

The cookies will be very soft when done and that's fine. They are meant to be soft and will harden a little as they cool.

Make sure the butter is soft/ room temperature, but not melted. Melted butter could cause the cookies to spread too much in the oven.

Classic Hot Chocolate (with video!)

It’s snuggle season guys – I don’t know about you but Delhi winter is my favourite time of the year. (I have been talking about the weather an awful lot haven’t i). The city is heavy with festivity, string lights, music and basically just good cheer and while whether that compensates for the traffic and smog is debatable, let’s at least acknowledge that festive season means we are officially allowed to eat as much comfort food as we want , GUILT NO BAR! Seriously – they even have a term for it – Holiday Weight. It is totally one hundred per cent legit, so toss your guilt in a box with your flip flops and shorts and label it ‘things I don’t have to deal with until summer’. ‘Nuff said. Anyway, nothing says COMFORT FOOD like hot chocolate in the winter amirite? Besides which, I am a strong proponent of the idea that chocolate really deserves as much attention, research and experimentation as is possible

Alice Medrich says that hot chocolate need not necessarily be the richest, thickest and creamiest because that steals attention from the flavour of chocolate – she recommends chocolate with milk and water (water!!) , but didn’t we grow up on a cup of creamy and milky hot chocolate loaded with thick whipped cream, and marshmallows and chocolate sauce ? So the dilemma is - what’s the real hot chocolate ?

[embed]https://vimeo.com/153621987[/embed]

Search #ProjectXHotChocolate on the blog and on Instagram (for sneak peaks) this whole winter to follow my experiments with hot chocolate, more theories (LOL), snuggly winter stories and some kickass recipes.

BUT FIRST – here’s my recipe of Classic Hot Chocolate – I swear by it.

1. Melt 25 gm of dark chocolate pieces (I use Ghiradelli 60 % cocoa) in saucepan, with 1 ½ tbsp. cocoa powder and ½ cup of milk. Stir over low heat until completely mixed and smooth.

1. Now remove from heat and add another ½ cup hot milk, 1 ½ tbsp sugar and 1/8th tsp salt.

1. Stir for about 2 -3 minutes until fully combined and frothy.

1. Whisk together some heavy cream and sugar to make your own whipped cream and dollop a spoonful on top.

1. Add a light sprinkle of dark chocolate shavings.

And TA-DAAAA!! The perfect hot chocolate.

More soon xxxx

Cinnamon rolls

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Why do people say ‘smells like food’ as though its necessarily a bad thing! Alright fine, nobody likes the smell of onions or rotten milk but how about acknowledging that food also brings us some of the most gorgeous fragrances ever? Imagine walking into a house that was oozing with the scents of cinnamon butter, freshly baked bread, hot from the oven. What part of that can you even complain about? Cinnamon is possibly one of the most delicious fragrances if you ask me – its rustic , honest, not-too-sweet-but-still-very-powerful-scent screams autumn. I could add cinnamon to everything (no, really – I use cinnamon scented candles. Im that person.)

Anyway, somewhere in the middle of last week, after an absolutely disastrous day in the kitchen (more about that later), I pulled out a recipe for what could be best described as the most comforting food of all time – Cinnamon rolled buns (you may have seen them on Instagram) !

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This was my first time using dry yeast and though I wont say it’s the easiest recipe in the world, I will say this: There is something immensely satisfying about perfectly risen dough and the plethora of possibilities that it brings. Since it’s just dough, you can use it for anything from cinnamon buns to bread to buns stuffed with minced meat. So feel free to experiment.

I used Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How To Be A Domestic Goddess – This is a book that a couple of my friends gave me for my birthday one year and that’s when I started baking, and I swear by it. (Its in shreds now).

Here’s the recipe:

The dough :

• 600g flour
• 100g sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 21g (3 sachets) instant dried yeast
• 100g butter
• 400mL milk
• 2 eggs

The cinnamon filling:

• 150g soft unsalted butter
• 150g sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
• And, 1 egg beaten for glazing.

Method:

1)      Preheat oven to 200°C

2)      Put flour, sugar, salt and yeast together in a large mixing bowl.

3)      In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, and melted butter.

4)      Mix the milk/egg/butter mixture into the flour mixture.

5)      Mix or knead until smooth and springy. (The dough will be sticky and will stubbornly cling to your hands so if you have an electric mixer with a dough hook, I recommend using that instead)

6)      Form dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave for 30 minutes to rise.

7)      Take one third of the dough and stretch or roll it out to cover a baking tray which has been lined with baking paper.

8)      Roll out the rest of the dough on a lightly floured surface

9)      Cover with the cinnamon butter – be generous here because you really want the cinnamon butter to be the star.

10)   Roll it up into a sausage and slice into 2cm slices, placing each slice on the dough base on your baking tray.

11)   Glaze with egg using a pastry brush.

12)   Leave for 15 minutes to rise.

13)   Put in the over for 20 – 25 mins.

14)   Put on a cooling rack, and then eat warm.

Also, here are six things you should know if you’re making these for the first timelike I was.

• Firstly, it could (it probably will) get really messy – but it’ll be worth it.
• Secondly, these are pull apart rolls so they will be stuck to each other when done and that’s fine.
• Thirdly – when you’re slicing the dough sausage and placing it on to the pan, it may look all smoodgy and not at all cooking-show worthy, but when it’s baked it’ll still smoothen out and look fantastic
• Fourth – the dough is just dough – you can even stuff it with Nutella if you like (I did a little experimental batch).
• Fifth – Eating this warm & fresh is the only way this should be eaten. If you’re eating it the next day, heat it a little first.
• Finally, I promise this is completely worth every minute of your time. Happy fall and happy baking !

xxxx