Chocolate chip cookies!

I find baking extremely therapeutic...when I am down in the dumps, nothing cheers me up like whipping up a pudding or a batch of brownies..and in the process, making a complete mess of myself and the kitchen..lolz! It does give you a sense of fulfillment though...dirty dishes, messing kitchen top..but the end result always makes it worth it :)

I have always talked about how much I love Nigella Lawson...so it only seemed fair that I whip up one of her most popular recipes, totally chocolate chip cookies! In the end, I had flour all over myself (simply because I am soooo very clumsy!), and I had a dirty egg beater, but who cares...I ended up with a batch of 6 crunchy on the outside yet gooey on the inside type chocolate cookies, which even made a big strong man like my hubby dearest to weep with gratitude...not to mention the fact that he wanted chocolate chip cookies for dinner too..he he!

Ingredients are few, most of them am sure will be in any kitchen cupboard, probably the only things you would additionally require would be cocoa powder ( I use Hershey's), chocolate chip cookies (again, good old Hersheys!) and some muscavado sugar, which is nothing but brown sugar, but this is what gives the fudgy texture to the cookies, so I would highly recommend that you buy this. If not, you can always make do with normal sugar. Time for some therapeutic baking...let's find out how to make this!

INGREDIENTS (Makes 10)

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup muscavado sugar
• 1/4 cup white granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 bar chocolate (I used Cadbury's dairy milk, 250 gms)
• 1 cold egg (keep the egg inside the fridge for 30 minutes, prior to starting your cooking)
• 1 stick butter (room temperature, unsalted)
• Salt- A pinch

METHOD

• Melt chocolate by placing a heat proof bowl over a saucepan containing boiling water. Ensure that the flame is very low, else the chocolate will get burnt. Set this aside to cool once done.
• In a bowl, using a egg beater, beat together butter, muscavado and white sugars.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt and add this to the butter- sugar mixture. Whip this using the beater.
• Finally add the cold egg and the melted chocolate. Beat together until everything is incorporated.
• Mix in the chocolate chips using a wooden spoon. The amount of chocolate chips you add is your discretion, the more you dd, the better!
• Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out mounds of the mixture and release on to a baking sheet. DO NOT flatten the mounds, they need to remain circular, because while baking, they will become flat and expand on their own. In case you do not have an ice cream scoop, use any big spoon that has a curvy interior. Else, use your hands to make balls of your choice.
• Place this on a baking dish sprayed with cooking spray or melted butter and ensure that there is a little space (approx 6 cm) between the dough balls. This is to give space to the cookies to expand.
• Place this into an oven, at 170 degrees celsius, for approx 18 minutes. Once a tooth pick is inserted, it should come out semi dry.
• Wait for the cookies to completely cool down before serving them, else they will break immediately. 

Do try this out and let me know how they turned out! There wont be any leftovers, guaranteed!!