perfect chocolate chip cookies

its been brought to my attention that there is an angsty, existential undertone to these posts. perhaps its becoming oppressive. and i have been doing A LOT of blog reading of late and it seems that there is no place for melancholia in the food blogging world. i have watched videos of young girls giggling with glee as their car-mel transforms from translucent to a golden, nutty brown. i have heard joyful, giddy exaltations such as “oooh, its science!!! lol babes”. i have read as people took “strollers”, “hubby’s” and “the little baba” to the local farmers market on a sunny spring sunday morning. ive read enough alliteration. ive seen enough sycophantic comments. ive also seen a keen interest and disturbing level of camaraderie betwixt and between food bloggers. i have stared the sickly, the saccharin, the nauseatingly glowing, in the face and i have decided that this is not a space for the mournful to come. it is not a place for the outpouring of bile. this is not a place for healthy levels of alienation. so in the place of this weeks melancholia, i suggest a cookie. the cookie. the classic, perfect all-american chocolate chip cookie. sans ennui. and accompanied by giggles, cries of delight, glee, exclamation marks (literal and metaphorical…sometimes even metaphysical) and excited, hysterical hand clapping. YAY FOR COOKIES!!!!!!!!!

ingredients

350g plain flour

3/4tsp baking soda

1/8tsp salt

225g butter

215g packed brown sugar (see snow for how to really pack it in right)

3/4cup caster sugar

1tsp vanilla

2 eggs

400g chocolate (milk or dark…whatever does it for you)

preheat the oven to 175 degrees. mix flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl so its well incorporated

in a separate bowl put the butter and sugar together. add in the vanilla.

beat this until smooth. then add in the eggs one at a time, beating after each. then fold in your flour mixture until combined and smooth. gloriously smooth.

then add in all the chocolate….or what little remains

line a baking tray with baking paper. take mouth size balls of dough and drop them onto the try. put into the oven for ten minutes. they will come out looking soft, unreasonably so, but thats what you want, whether you know it or not

these can be eaten with a tall glass of milk. or you could call them biscuits and have them with some espresso but youd only be fooling yourself. alternatively these, placed next to 3 loaves of sourdough, a doomed polenta cake, and a revolting lump of starter, could also be deemed too much to bare and be swiftly discarded of

white chocolate and cranberry cookies

just because you can, generally means you should

why would the first post of this blog, written by the girl who likes all things to be beautiful, generally french, delicate, subtle, and refined, (think they call it a snob) be something so saccharine, so deeply and shamefully american, so obscene in its excess, and so wholly unrefined as an oatmeal and white chocolate cookie? could the answer lie in the fact that i didn’t know where to begin? could it be that i simply wanted a cookie (because who on this sweet lonely planet doesn’t?) could it be that i, like my cookie, am just another toothsome, chewy, rich victim of american cultural imperialism? no, none of that. its because i’ve been told that cooking is about eating and so ultimately the task here is to produce something everyone wants to eat. e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e. so far in this life, i’ve not met anyone who doesn’t like cookies. the point is this is not just another food blog which promotes ‘comfort food’ and ‘milk and cookies’ as the miserable destiny of human beings. no this blog and this cookie is about democratising food. and if i have to start with a soft, chewy, unrefined, sexless yet somehow mouthwatering (unless you’ve had too many) cookie, so be it.

the chocolate and red one and the chewy bumpy one

ingredients.

225g unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla (or 1/4 of a bottle depending on whether or not you subscibe to the ‘you can never have too much vanilla/garlic school of thought)

1-1/2 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 tsp cinnamon

3 cups oats (the little instant kind – for chewiness. use big if you want to see your oatmeal better)

1 cup dried cranberries

1 cup white chocolate

(if you wish to make the chewy bumpy variety replace white with milk chocolate and replace cranberries with hazelnuts, almonds or whatever scrap nuts you may have lying around)

pre-heat oven to 175 degrees

beat sugars and butter until creamy. a boy is good for that sort of laborious tedious manual activity. they seem to like it. add eggs and vanilla and beat again. add combined flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and mix to combine. add oats, cranberries and chocolate.

place tablespoonfuls of the mix on baking trays lined with baking paper and bake for 10-12 minutes.