Cookie monster

It's been absolutely shocking weather here - yesterday especially we had torrential downpours and temperatures never got over 8 degrees.  Brrrr!  Now, it's not just that I hate getting cold and wet when walking Keith the dog but on a much more serious note I am very concerned about the impact the weather is having on crops etc.  I haven't seen more than a couple of butterflies so far this year and the bees are not really coming out, so how on earth are plants going to get pollinated?

To cheer us up, I made a couple of batches of biscuits (cookies) which turned out rather lovely with a slight crunch on the outside but soft & chewy middle: chocolate chip & hazelnut and cranberry & blueberry oat ones. 

Both were definite winners and replacing some of the flour with oats (as suggested by Mr Happy Larder) gave a great texture to the fruit ones.  I didn't have quite enough dried berries, so used some frozen ones instead which tasted yummy but made for slightly soft biscuits the following day.  I'd recommend using just dried fruit if you are planning on storing these.


A couple of these with a hot mug of tea helped us forget the rainy day ;-)


Chocolate Chip & Hazelnut Biscuits/Cookies (makes 25 - 30)

Ingredients:
80 - 100g sugar
80 - 100g dark brown sugar
half a tsp baking powder
half a tsp baking soda
225g salted butter (at room temperature)
375g flour
2 eggs
150g chocolate chips
100g chopped hazelnuts

Method:

1. Beat the butter and sugars together with a whisk . Add the eggs (one at a time), and the baking soda.
2. Add in the baking powder and flour and mix until combined – the dough will be quite wet and sticky—then add the hazelnuts and chocolate chips just until mixed.
3. With a spoon take some dough and form into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet and press down on the ball slightly with your fingers.  Repeat to use up all the dough.
4. Bake at 160 degrees for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. The biscuits will still be quite soft and look slightly underbaked. 
5. Let the biscuits cool on a rack before eating.

 Variations: 

• replace half the flour with oats
• use dried fruit (berries, apricots or similar) instead of the chocolate chips/hazelnuts

I used the lower amount of sugar in my biscuits and found these sweet enough, especially with the chocolate chips but you may want to try the cookie dough first to ensure it's sweet enough for you.  And then you might need to taste it again, just to be double-sure...and before you know it you have eaten half the cookie dough already before even baking ;-)