I was baking some cookies for one of my friends and screwed it up pretty badly. I don’t have any images of those cookies to show you because my therapist tells me I’m afraid of failing in front of people. But, EOD, I added way too much butter, and they spread out like pancakes and stuck to the parchment paper, and as I tried to remove them, the paper tore and- Ah! Flashbacks! FLASHBACKS!………….it was pretty bad. It was also a recipe which I had been following for a long time from a reputed “Tasty-ful” channel. So, I went to the one person whom I knew in my list of contacts is a reputed cookie expert……COOKIE MONSTER. JK. It’s a friend of mine who runs the bakery, Sugarma. She was kind enough to let me know my dumb mistakes and correctly decipher my screw-up over just a couple of messages. She also gave me a better recipe and set me up for success, and what followed later is a series of trial and errors, and eventually we collaborated and made a recipe video together. I have linked the video below, so do check it out. If by any chance, you are here after watching the video and commenting, “Where are the measurements, you dumbass?”……then they are down below…….Dumbass.
Ingredients
- 113 grams of cold Butter (cubed)
- 110 grams of Brown Sugar
- 50 grams of granulated White Sugar
- 1 no Egg
- 1/4 tsp of Vanilla
- 180 grams of All-purpose Flour
- 3/8 tsp of Baking Soda
- 3/8 tsp of Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp of Salt
- 200 grams of Dark Chocolate chunks
- (optional) 50 grams of Milk Chocolate chips
Procedure
- Combine the brown and white sugars with the cold butter. If you don’t have an electric mixer or it isn’t working out of spite, then skip your arms workout for that day. We’ll be combining them with the help of a wooden spoon or using a spatula.
- Beat the mixture until it is uniform and there are no big sugar crystals. Take your time with this step, and take breaks in between if necessary. This step will ensure the texture of the cookies.
- Once that’s done, add the egg. Tip: Crack it into a bowl first, check for eggshells, and then add it to the mixture.
- Add the vanilla and mix until uniform.
- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and add it to the wet mixture.
- Chop the dark chocolate into chunks and add it to the mixture as well. Add milk chocolate chips if you like.
- Mix gently, trying not to deflate the aeration we’ve created in Step 2. Don’t spend too much time on this step; we don’t want to overwork the dough, but make sure it is uniform.
- Now, portion out 50 gms of the dough, press them together gently, and place them on the tray lined with baking or parchment paper.
(In the video, I roll them into ball shapes, but if you want pockets of chocolate melting and looking photogenic, do this instead. I realised it later.) - Now freeze the tray for 15-20 mins. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 190 C.
- Bake your cookies for 12-15 mins. Keep checking on them, and remove once they are done.
- Allow to cool for a few minutes before attempting to remove from the tray. Use a palette knife to go underneath the cookies, or use a spatula or a turner. Do not remove them by grabbing from the top.