- Serves 6 - Ready in 2.5 hours (includes 1.5 hours of dough freezing time) -
This recipe is adapted slightly from the amazing Cupcake Jemma recipe on YouTube for NYC Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I have halved the quantities mentioned on the above video-recipe, as even my powerful 1970s Kenwood mixer couldn't cope with the vast quantity of heavy cookie dough!
Gather together...
50g de-shelled walnuts (or leave them out to be nut free).
115g fridge-cold butter, roughly sliced (salted or unsalted - you choose).
80g brown sugar.
80g white (caster or granulated) sugar.
200g milk chocolate chopped up into 1/2 cm chunks - 'cooking' chocolate melts far more easily and yummily than regular chocolate. Sainsbury's own-brand cooking chocolate is sold in foil and card (so is plastic-free), Green & Black's cooking chocolate is plastic-free AND palm oil-free, but is too pricey for me to use regularly.
100g self-raising flour.
150g plain flour.
1/8 tsp salt.
1/8 tsp bicarbonate of soda (sieved).
1 tsp baking powder (sieved).
1 LARGE egg (beaten in advance for 20 seconds).
Get baking...
1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (160 C fan) - turn OFF the oven once you have finished roasting the nuts as the cookies need a period of freezing before you bake them, so you won't need the oven again for a while.
2. Roast the 50g of walnuts for 5 minutes on a baking tray, then (carefully as they are hot!) rub them around in a tea towel to get about 50% of the skins off - they won't be perfectly skinned but this won't affect the cookies' yummy flavour. Set the de-skinned walnuts aside to cool.
3. Meanwhile add the 115g of cold, roughly sliced butter to the bowl of an electric mixer and beat it for 30 seconds until it is slightly softened - you need the butter to stay quite hard yet be soft enough to mix somewhat with the sugars.
4. Add the 80g of brown sugar and the 80g of white sugar to the softened butter and beat with the electric mixer for about 30 seconds - the sugars and cold butter will clump together which is a good sign (DO NOT aim for a creamy fluffy mixture).
5. To the clumpy sugary-butter, add the 200g of chopped milk chocolate and the 50g of walnuts and stir by hand for about 10 seconds until just combined.
6. Add the 100g self-raising flour, the 150g plain flour, the 1/8 tsp of salt, the 1/8 tsp of sieved bicarbonate of soda and the 1 tsp of sieved baking powder.
7. Stir in these dry ingredients, just for 30 seconds, until they reach a breadcrumb-with-lumps-in consistency with the sugary-butter-nutty-chocolate mixture.
8. Add the beaten (large) egg to the bowl and stir for 30 seconds, until just combined.
9. Now very briefly 'clump' (DON'T roll) the dough into 6 rough balls weighing 125g each (DO weigh the dough on electronic scales).
10.Freeze the balls of dough (on a plate covered with a beeswax wrap rather than clingfilm, if possible) for at least 90 minutes. They actually bake better if they are frozen the night before you want to bake them - they will keep happily in the freezer for up to two weeks if needed.
11. Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan) or Gas 6.
12. Once the oven is hot, put an empty LARGE oven tray inside, to heat up for 10 minutes (the tray needs to be REALLY hot for these chunky cookies to cook though).
13. Put the frozen, lumpy dough balls VERY SPACED OUT on the large, pre-heated baking tray, in the middle of the oven - be very careful when handling the hot tray!
14. Initially bake the cookies for 12 minutes.
15. Temporarily remove the hot tray carefully from the oven and flatten each part-baked dough ball with a fish slice so they look more cookie-like and don't remain raw in the middle (but do keep them quite thick and chunky).
16. Bake for a final 5 minutes (the finished cookies are quite light in colour, this is fine).
***Optional*** To make them Valentine hearts:
shape the hot cookies (with care!) using a dinner knife or the edge of a fish slice, into a heart shape, as soon as they came out of the oven for the final time.
17. Cool the baked cookies on the baking tray for 10 minutes before carefully moving them to a wire rack (using a fish slice) for 20 minutes.
18. Eat the cookies once cool so they solidify - enjoy!
Adapted slightly from the amazing Cupcake Jemma recipe on YouTube for NYC Chocolate Chip Cookies.