The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies || Baking

I did some baking on the weekend and took a few pictures while I was doing so, so that I could share the recipe with you! I can honestly say these are the most delicious cookies I've discovered so far, because they are crunchy on the outside but really chewy and delicious in the middle, and they are so super easy!

I am all for cookies that are jam-packed with chocolate but you could really put anything in these, you could do nuts, MnMs, sweets, caramel, anything like that, so feel free to switch the chocolate for anything you feel like! You can also very easily leave out the cocoa and add in a few teaspoons of vanilla essence instead if you want vanilla cookies rather, pretty much anything will work with these!

Okay so the first thing you want to do is preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and make sure you've got all the ingredients; you will need:

250g room temperature butter

270g self-raising flour

280g caster sugar

60g cocoa

1 large egg

1/4 cup water

As much chocolate and whatever type that you like:

I used 400g of milk chocolate and 160g of white chocolate

Okay, so get out a big mixing bowl (it does need to be quite large) and throw in the butter and caster sugar. Before putting the butter in the bowl, chop it roughly into smaller blocks, so it is easier to break down. 

You could do this in a KitchenAid or electric mixer, but I think it is easy enough and less complicated with a wooden spoon or spatula. 

So now you want to cream together the butter and sugar. This does take a little while as the butter needs to be broken down and there is a lot of sugar to incorporate, but basically keep mixing and working the mixture until you have a smooth, creamy mixture. 

Now whisk in the egg. 

Next, you can sift in the flour and the cocoa together. This might be easier if done in small batches of the dry ingredients being gradually added and then incorporated, and so on. The full 1/4 cup of water doesn't all need to be added. If the mixture is too dry at this point, add some of the water. You will probably need to add at least half of it, but see how wet/dry your mixture is and adjust accordingly. 

You can switch to your hands to incorporate the last of the flour-cocoa mix, I find it a lot easier as the mixture should be dough-y and thick. 

Next, chop/break up your chocolate (or whatever else you want to put in the biscuits). You can chop the chocolate as finely or roughly as you like, but I choose to leave mine really big and chunky- so I just break up the squares and add them like that, no chopping or anything. Use your hands to make sure all the chocolate is nicely mixed into the cookie dough. 

You're pretty much done now. Grease/line with baking paper 2/3 baking trays and then roll the dough into fairly large balls and place them, nicely spread out, on the baking trays. You can change the size of the balls depending on how big you want your cookies, but I find the size of about a ping-pong ball makes perfectly big cookies. 

Pop the trays in the oven for 7-10 minutes. This completely depends on your oven, so make sure you check them so that they don't burn. When you take them out, leave them until they are completely cool and voiiila- there you have it!

This recipe, for me, makes about 24 fairly large cookies. 

Enjoy- happy baking!