The Unassuming Favourite - Chocolate Chip Cookies

It all started out when I went to my kitchen one day, looked all over, and found nothing in there that can satisfy my craving for sweets. Banana bread doesn't count as it's breakfast food and hardly sweet enough to be termed as a snack. Hence, the fastest, simplest thing to bake which is, at the same time, disaster-proof and popular with everyone is - the chocolate chip cookie!

The unassuming chocolate chip cookie is hardly plain and simple. Numerous debates have been generated over it including discussions over the use of each ingredient within the cookie. Creamed butter vs melted butter, brown vs white sugar, cake flour vs all-purpose flour and even the size of the chocolate chips has come into question. Now you know what I'm talking about. Though plain and unassuming on the outside, what goes on beyond that exterior is pretty much up to your own imagination.

I've been trying all sorts of recipes for chocolate chip cookies - chewy, cakey, light and fluffy - but I haven't made crunchy ones yet, at least not from scratch besides using the cookie pre-mix. From the discussions I've read, it seems like most people prefer the softer, chewy chocolate chip cookies as opposed to its more crunchy counterparts. For me, it really depends on my mood. I love soft chewy cookies with a hint of caramel brown sugar on days when I need a pick-me-up, but I also love these crunchy cookies that are perfect for the cookie jar. If I'm forced to choose, I would go for the former, simply because it masks the butter taste alot better and the texture's easier on the palate.

Anyway, here goes - my very first crunchy chocolate chip cookie! I used the recipe from Happy Homebaker, and made slight adjustments to make them less sweet. I love the way these lovelies spread out into nice rounded cookies and even left tracks where I pressed my fork against the top. It has just the right amount of sweetness (according to my taste) and a pleasant vanilla taste. For these, I used Valrhona Pearls instead than my usual Ghiradhelli Semisweet/Bittersweet chips. The pearls, being smaller and rounder, look very cute in these cookiee and they were considerably less sweet than Ghiradhelli's as well.

Okay, time to dig in!


Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Happy Home Baking

Ingredients:
115g unsalted butter, softened
100g castor sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g all-purpose flour
125g Valrhona Pearls

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicon-coated paper.

2. Cream butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in the egg gradually. Mix well after each addition. Add in vanilla extract, mix well.

4.Sift flour over the mixture and fold it in with a spatula. Fold in the chocolate chips.

5. Drop heaped teaspoons of the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving one and a half inch to two inches of space between the cookies to allow for spreading. Flatten each cookie dough slightly with the back of a fork, keeping the shape as even as possible.

6. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until the cookies turn golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
 
Yields 26 cookies