Totally Chocolate Chip Cookies

The other night I was taken by the need to bake something, but not just anything. Something chocolate and comforting. I turned to Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Express and her Instant Calmer chapter, and these cookies seemed to fit the bill perfectly. They really are a totally chocolate experience, just knowing you had some of these in the house should be a calmer in itself!

These are also in print in Elinor Klivans’s Big Fat Cookies, where in turn Nigella found them. Recipes that pass from one cook to another like this are usually good recipes, ones that stand the test of several kitchens =) I mention this both to give credit and to show where the recipe hails from.

This is the full recipe here, but I halved it and just made 6 whopping cookies! I did consider down sizing them, but decided this wasn’t in the spirit of things, so left them as the six colossal cookies that they are. I’ve copied the recipe across from here. My note for the recipe is that I thought they were at their best a day or two after making them, they seemed to get more fudgy. Sometimes only chocolate will do!

45 Totally Chocolate Chip Cookies
From Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Express.

125g/4oz dark chocolate

150g/5¼oz plain flour

30g/1oz cocoa, sifted

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda½ tsp salt

125g/4oz unsalted butter, softened

75g/2½oz light brown sugar

50g/2oz caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 free-range egg, cold from the fridge

350g/12¼oz dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3.

2. Break the 125g/4oz dark chocolate into pieces and place into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until melted.

3. Place the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl and mix well.

4. In another bowl, cream the butter and two sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and stir well.

5. Beat in the vanilla extract and crack in the egg, then mix in the dry ingredients. Finally stir in the chocolate chips.

6. Scoop out 12 equal portions of the mixture - an ice cream scoop and a palette knife are the best tools for the job - and place onto a lined baking sheet about 6cm/2½in apart. Do not flatten them.

7. Transfer to the oven and bake for 18 minutes, then test with a skewer - it should come out semi-clean and not wet with batter. If you pierce a chocolate chip, try again.

8. Leave the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 4-5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to harden as they cool.