Mmmmmm...All-American Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I’m not a great cook. I confess that the majority of the cooking I undertake is more out of necessity than exploring and expanding my culinary skills. However, I have found that baking the odd chocolate brownie or fruit cake, with my adult daughter, can be a nice bonding experience, where we share gossip and confidences while we share weighing, whisking and stirring duties. If the recipe tastes great before it is cooked, so much the better as there are few guilty pleasures that evoke childhood memories as “eating out of the bowl”.

Our latest adventure in the kitchen was All-American Chocolate Chunk Cookies. They had everything I love. They were easy to make, tasted great before and after cooking, full of chunky chocolate pieces and they also had peanuts to add texture. They were a calorific indulgent treat which were so nice and easy I wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!

Ingredients

300g plain chocolate (about 55% cocoa solids)
100g bar milk chocolate
100g light muscovado sugar
85g butter, at room temperature
100g peanut butter, crunchy is best
1 medium egg
½ tsp vanilla extract
100g self-raising flour
100g large salted roasted peanuts

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4/fan 160C.Gather together and weigh all the ingredients.

Chop 200g/7oz of the plain chocolate into rough, irregular chunks. Chop the milk chocolate in the same way, but keep separate.

Break the remaining plain chocolate into a large heatproof mixing bowl. Melt in the microwave on medium for about 11⁄2 minutes (or over a pan of simmering water).

Stir the chocolate until melted, then tip in the sugar, butter, peanut butter, egg and vanilla and beat with a wooden spoon until well mixed. Stir in the flour, all the milk chocolate chunks, the nuts (no need to chop) and half the plain chocolate chunks. The mixture will feel quite soft, and drop easily from the spoon if you shake it.

Drop big spoonfuls in 12 piles on to 2 or 3 baking sheets, leaving room for them to spread (you may need to bake in batches). Stick the remaining chunks into the cookies (2-3 pieces in each).

Bake for 10-12 minutes (although we ended up cooking ours for 14) until they are tinged very slightly darker around the edges. The smell will let you know they are ready. They will be soft in the middle, but will crisp up as they cool. (Cook for longer and you’ll have crisper cookies.) Let them cool and firm up for a few minutes on the baking sheet (they’ll break if you move them while still hot), then lift off with a wide spatula on to a cooling rack. They will keep crisp in an airtight tin for 3-4 days.

Source of the recipe:-
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/17...