Laiji's Creative Corner: Chocolate Chip Cookies

My Version

Easy chocolaty, crunchy, chewy, irresistible and yummy cookies for kids and chocolate lovers. I've mentioned earlier that my first experiments with cooking began with baking. Baking is lot of fun, especially for kids. Though your kitchen might get a bit messy initially, you can teach them a lot with a mere participation, like educating them on measures and calculations, introducing them to new ingredients, helping them in understanding and practicing basic kitchen sanitation and safety, inculcating in them an interest towards home-made fresh food etc.. Hmm.. Thanks to my mom :) I learnt a lot of the basics from her. She was indeed a great teacher. I grew up as the only child and used to feel a bit lonely. My mom used to try hard to bring me out of that lonesome feel by being there for me. She's the one who brought out the artist in me. I used to always hang around with her and observe her while she was cooking, cleaning, gardening, stitching, arranging etc. She'd play with me, read me stories and other informative articles, encourage me to do lot of craft works, fabric/glass/pot paintings, ceramic flower and decor making etc.. She's played a very crucial role in moulding me to whatever I am today :) I honour her and feel so blessed to have been sent to such an amazing mother :) All Thanks to the Almighty!

Well, that's exactly where I was taking you to :) If you are a mother, you can do so much to mould your kids and bring out their hidden instincts and talents. You might think, "I'm not sending them to culinary school anyway, then why waste time encouraging them to cook.." Well, it's not about cooking, but, it's about educating them with basic life skills, which eventually develops thinking, understanding, creativity, attitude etc.. Just give it a try if you still haven't! :)

Back to the cookies.. :) This recipe is also from my childhood collections, from a baking book from the school library, recreated with a few improvisations. Lets bake! :)

Dry Ingredients :

Plain Flour	-	150 g
Caster Sugar	-	100 g
Soft Brown Sugar	-	75 g
Coco powder	-	30 g
Baking soda	-	1 teaspoon
Salt	-	1/2 teaspoon
Milk Chocolate chips	-	200 g
Desiccated Coconut	-	1/2 cup

Dry Ingredients :

Egg	-	1 no.
Unsalted butter	-	125 g
Milk / Dark Chocolate bar	-	125 g
Vanilla essence	-	1 tablespoon

Preparation Method :

Mix all the dry ingredients well except the chocolate chips and desiccated coconut.

Next, combine the wet ingredients -

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs until they fluff up. Bring butter down to room temperature and whisk into the egg. Add the vanilla essence.

Chop the chocolate into chunks. I've mixed milk and dark chocolate to give the cookies a little sweet and bitter taste. Place into a Pyrex dish and microwave for 1 and half minutes. Remove and stir and again microwave for 50 seconds and blend until the chocolate pieces melt completely. If you haven't refrigerated the chocolate bar, you do not need too long to melt it.

Pour the chocolate into the egg, butter and vanilla mix and whip well into a fine chocolaty texture.

Slowly whisk in the dry ingredient and combine well.

Then add the chocolate chips and the desiccated coconut and combine well.

Scoop out the cookie mix onto an oven tray . Make sure you leave enough space between each scoop. Do not press it down. It will melt down on its own.

Preheat your oven to 170 degree centigrade and bake the cookies for 18-20 minutes. Do not place the oven tray too close to the flame. It will burn the base of the cookies.

Remove from the oven, and the cookies will still be moist and soft. Don't worry, that's exactly how it should be. Allow the cookies to cool completely. Do not touch or try to remove from the tray, it will break.