Mia Bakes: HappyCall Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies (cookies cooked on hob!)

Well, I didn't intend to put this up as a recipe post, but in the end I just decided to (for my own record's sake) so here's a super quick and short post! 

To be honest, I have no idea how many cookies I can get out of this recipe because I've not finished baking the entire batch of dough (more than half of it is currently still frozen in my freezer) even after using part of it as my baked cheesecake base. That idea came out pretty fail, by the way, because the low heat required to bake off the cheesecake is not enough to give you a crunchy cookie base, which was what I want to achieve. But if you like a soft, severely underbaked, chewy and gooey cookie base, then go for it. 

Anyway, to get at least an estimated a dozen huge (subway sized) chocolate chip cookies, you'll need:

100g unsalted butter

70g shortening (preferably butter-flavoured)

75g dark brown sugar

115g castor sugar 

(I substituted part of this with stevia)

125g plain flour

60g top flour (or cake flour)

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

180g chocolate chips 

(I used semi-sweet & 72% dark mixed)

recipe adapted from modernhoney.com

First up, melt your unsalted butter in a pot over the hob and let it simmer until browned. Then, take it off the heat and set it aside to cool, before beating in the shortening and sugars until creamy.

Add in the egg (at room temperature) and vanilla extract, and mixed until well combined before sifting in the the rest of the dry ingredients (except chocolate chips) in 2 to 3 batches, folding until most of the flour cannot be seen. 

Then, add in your chocolate chips (or you can use chocolate chunks, up to you) and fold until just combined. 

And I'm pretty sure nobody needs to bake off a dozen huge-ass chocolate chip cookies at one shot, unless you're having a party, so just portion out the amount of dough you wish to bake off for now, and wrap the rest tightly in clingwrap and pop it into the freezer. That should give you ready-made chocolate chip cookie dough for the next couple of weeks!

Do note that cooking time will differ depending on how big or small you portion out your cookies to be, I made mine with 3 flat tablespoonfuls of dough each. 

The cookie dough has a pretty high fat content (170g of butter and shortening!) and also because HappyCall is a non-stick pan, there's really no need for you to add in anymore butter or cooking spray. Just warm up your pan for a little (needs not be very hot, just barely warm), and then press your cookie dough (I shaped mine into about slightly more than 0.5cm thick) onto the pan. Snap your HappyCall pan shut and lower your heat down to the lowest heat and cook for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until the side has turned golden brown.

Now, the reason why I used HappyCall pan is because the cookies will still be very soft and crumbly, so flipping them will be a b*tch! With HappyCall, you simply just flip your entire pan around and set it back onto the hob! It's that easy!

Cook your cookies for another 8 mins or so, until the side turns golden brown as well. 

At this point, the cookies will be fully baked (this is a slightly crunchy, crisp cookie so you need not worry about over-baking it that much) but they will still very extremely fragile. Leave it on the pan to cool for at least 3 to 5 minutes before attempting to pick it up. The cookies will firm up and turn crisp upon cooling down. 

Till then, 

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Cornflakes Crunchy Butter Cookies

Well, guess what? I'm supposed to be putting up a food review but I decided to let this recipe post jump queue. CNY is around the corner and I've been baking more often than usual (aside from my weekly breadmaking) to test out new recipes for my CNY cookies. 

My mum has been bugging me to bake those honey cornflakes cups, but I'll very much prefer butter cookies. So I reckon, why not mix the two up? 

So let's get over the ingredients so we can get started. 

You'll need:

100g salted butter 

(Golden Churn is preferred)

75g caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

150g Top flour (or cake flour)

30g potato starch
(you may use corn flour, but I personally feel PS gives more crunchy cookies while CF makes it more tender)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

30g cornflakes, lightly crushed with hands.

More crushed cornflakes (to roll your cookie dough in)

Instructions are simple. First, cream your butter and sugar until it turns pale and fluffy. Then, add in your beaten egg and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Sift in your flours and fold until just combined, before folding in the crushed cornflakes. 

The dough should be easy to work with, and shouldn't be sticking to your hands. 

I used a weighing scale to portion my cookie dough into 13g each (my first scoop was a 13g hence I decided to go with it) and then rolled the dough into more crushed cornflakes before putting them onto a baking sheet, spaced a few cms apart.

You need not space them out too much as these cookies do not puff up much, nor spread a lot. I didn't even need to chill the dough before baking. 

Bake the cookies at 175 degree Celsius for about 20 to 25 minutes or until the surface turns slightly browned. 

These cookies are full of buttery fragrance (do remember to use good quality butter if not your cookies will not taste as good) and crunchy from all the cornflakes bits. 

If you'll prefer a more crumbly and tender butter cookies, just cut down the baking time and not let your cookies turn too brown. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Recipe: Crunchy Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies

It has been a while since I've baked, being bogged down by many other nitty gritty issues recently. I had actually planned to bake some rainbow cake in a jar for my colleagues as x'mas presents but somehow chucked that idea into the refuse chute.... :( 

Nevertheless, I still have to share this recipe I've tried a while ago. It's CRUNCHY chocolate cookies with chocolate chips! 

Let's get on with the ingredients you'll need:

1. Butter - 125g

2. Brown Sugar - 50g

3. Caster Sugar - 40g

4. Semi Sweet + Unsweetened Baker's Chocolate, MELTED - 125g

(you can tweak the ratio you want by yourself to get varying level of sweetness)

5. Vanilla Extract - 1 Tsp.

6. Egg - 1 no.

7. AP Flour - 150g

8. Cocoa Powder - 30g

9. Baking Soda - 1 Tsp.

10. Salt - 1/2 Tsp.

11. Chocolate Chips - 100g

This recipe will give around 4 sheets of 16 bite sized cookies each.

First up, if you do not have baking soda on hand, you can always substitute it with 2.5x to 3x (actually in terms of actual content, it's 4x, but it might change the texture of your cookie if you used too much) of Baking Powder. But it's always better to stick to Baking Soda. 

First up, cream the sugars with the butter (soften, at room temperature) until it turns light and fluffy. 

Add the melted chocolate after it has cooled down (I did this because I didn't want my butter to melt along with the hot chocolate mix. Plus, we gotta wait for it to cool to add in the egg eventually) and stir well until thoroughly mixed. 

Crack in the egg and add in vanilla extract. Mix well. 

Add all the dry ingredients into a bowl and sift well. Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. 

Add in the chocolate chips and fold until just combined.Remember, do not overmix!

Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of the batter onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 170 degree Celsius for 25 mins. 

Do tweak your baking time depending on your oven and size of your cookies. The batter is also very firm so you can either work with your hands or with two spoons. 

After reading up on whether keeping the cookie batter overnight will produce better tasting cookies, I've decided to do an experiment on it. I separated my batter into two batches and kept half of them in the fridge overnight, wrapped in cling wrap.

My verdict is, there is no difference. However, a cookie batter can typically be kept in the fridge for up to 7 days or in the freezer for up to months. So for convenience sake you can always prepare more batter to keep in the freezer and bake them as and when you crave for some freshly baked cookies. But taste-wise, I'll say skip it. 

Till then,

Mia

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