Very chocolatey chocolate chip cookies

Recently, my friend SC enquired about recipes for Chinese New Year goodies. Other than cookie / biscuit recipes, I would need to look for other recipes. I believe that I have recorded in one of my recipe books some recipes that my maternal grandmother gave me, such as that of egg rolls ("love letters"), "tan san" and sweet potato kueh ("zi zhoh") but I would need to look for the recipe book as it has been quite a while since I last made such goodies.

In the meantime, SC, other than the recipe for butter cookies which I posted on 23 August 2008, you may also want to try the chocolate chip cookie recipe set out in this post.

I have named the recipe "very chocolatey chocolate chip cookies" because the cookies are full of chocolatey taste.

Family and friends who have sampled my chocolate chip cookies have commented that the cookies smell and taste like a certain famous brand of chocolate chip cookies, which is certainly a wonderful compliment.

The cookies are very easy to make. The only thing is that you would need a fair amount of patience as you place the cookie dough onto the baking tray using two teaspoons. It is not difficult to do this but it can be tedious as you would end up baking quite a number of cookies and it does take a bit of time. However, it is all worth it when you smell the delicious aroma of chocolate while the cookies are baking in the oven. When you bite into a warm cookie when it is fresh from the oven, it is simply awesome.

As I use a tabletop Moulinex oven (that Da and I bought in 1998), I can only make 20 cookies on each baking tray. The oven is not very large and can fit at most a 9" square baking pan. As such, when I bake cookies, I do tend to take several hours each time.

When Da and I moved into our current apartment a few ago, I was elated to discover that the apartment came with a built-in oven beneath the hob. However, when I tried to use this oven to bake cookies and cakes, I found that the cakes tend to be quite dry and the cookies tend to burn. I would probably have to modify my recipes if I wish to use this oven to bake my cakes and cookies. Until such time that I modify the recipes, I am happy to continue using my tabletop oven.

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

1/4 cup corn flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup Milo powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter (softened)

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 eggs

1/2 cup ground peanuts

1 cup chopped nuts

2 cups chocolate chips

Method

1. Heat oven to 190 degrees celsius.

2. Sift together the plain flour, corn flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, Milo powder and salt. Set aside.

3. In a separate mixing bowl, beat butter, castor sugar, brown sugar, vanilla essence and ground cinnamon with an electric mixer until creamy.

4. Add the eggs, ground peanuts and chopped nuts and mix well using the electric mixer.

5. Using a spatula, stir the chocolate chips into the batter and mix well.

6. Gradually add the flour mixture using a spatula, mixing well.

7. Using two teaspoons, drop by rounded teaspoons onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

8. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

9. Cool slightly; remove from baking tray and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

10. Store in an air-tight container.