History:

I love chocolate chip cookies, especially the soft baked type. The first time I had soft baked cookies was on a conference trip to Toronto, when it was given as part of the lunch packs. Those cookies were huge, bigger than the size of my hands. They were great as a late afternoon snack, and were a life-saver during one of the late days. Back in Singapore, it was really hard to find the soft bake types, I only know Subway stocks them, but I've never tried. Recently, I found the soft backed series by Pepperidge Farm and after trying them, I decided, I shall try to bake my own soft baked cookies.

Ingredients:
90g softened butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour
2 cups chocolate chips
100g macadamia nuts


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C
   
2. Cream the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth
3. Beat in the eggs
4. Stir in the vanilla extract
5. Dissolve the baking soda in the water
6. Add to the batter
7. Add in the salt
8. Stir in the flour
9. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts
10. Use a large spoon to drop batter onto baking sheets on an ungreased pan
11. Bake for 10mins
12. Take the cookies off the pan immediately to cool
13. As soon as the cookies cool, store in air-tight containers

Note:
Do not overbake the cookies or else they will become the hard type
Cooling immediately after baking is very important as the pan is hot and continues to bake th cookies even after removal from the oven
There is no need to cream the sugar into the batter completely. I had some sugar crystals in the cookies, but nobody noticed/cared. :P
Precutting the baking sheets into individual sheets for each cookie makes removal from the pan much easier
The cookie dough can be stored as is, up till step 6. I have another batch sitting in the fridge and I think I shall try another flavour within the week. :)
Air-tight storage is very important!!!

Posted by R. on Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 1:15 AM | Permalink