Thursday, August 14, 2008

Chocolate Chip Cookies - the Kiwi Version


Recently I have blogged about my quest to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie, so I thought I would share with you my own version of the traditional kiwi chocolate chip cookie made with condensed milk.
The kiwi version of the ccc is a crisper, more pale biscuit that its American counterpart which is made with an egg and usually two types of sugar. I still like a bit of chew or density in my cookies, so I think my adaptations make my version near perfect.

There are three changes I make – One is that I use half icing sugar and half castor sugar. The addition of the icing sugar gives some of that density (think shortbread made with icing sugar rather than castor sugar). Secondly, I substitute some of the flour for ground almonds. I think this adds to the texture, but I don’t add enough to make the biscuits taste almondy. And thirdly, when I soften the butter in order to beat in the sugar, I soften to the point of almost melting. I am not sure exactly how this changes the texture, but it does seem to add a denseness to the cookies which I like.

For these cookies which I made last weekend, I used chopped dairy milk chocolate rather than dark chocolate. While the idea was good, I actually think that chocolate chip cookies need dark chocolate to give a better contrast between the sweetness of the cookie and the smoothness of the chocolate. Sometimes dairy milk can just end up tasting sweet. Try these and see what you think

And I also wanted to say thank you to those who have made comments this week who havent in the past. I love comments! as it is my only real gauge of how many pepople read my blog. So thanks everyone!!



Chocolate Chip Cookies

250g butter
¼ c icing sugar
¼ c castor sugar
200g condensed milk (half a can)
½ c ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
2 – 2 ½ c self raising flour
250g chocolate chips or chunks

· Soften butter to almost melting and then beat in sugars and condensed milk
· Mix in dry ingredients (use enough flour to make your dough not too soft – you should be able to easily roll the dough into balls)
· Roll into large balls, place on trays and lightly flatten
Bake at 160c for 15-20 minutes until light golden

5 comments:

Thinking About Food said...

They look lovely Tammy, my mum still makes big batches of these and has them in her freezer and we still (!) go around and help ourselves (and we all have our own children!)
BTW do you use Google Analytics for following traffic and sources? It is one way to keep a track of visitors!

Cakelaw said...

Delicious - I'll go the Kiwi version any day.

Lysy said...

Hooray! Thank you for posting these - I can't wait to give them a try. I love recipes with no eggs in them too as it's easy to make a mini batch :)

steph- whisk/spoon said...

those look good! i've never heard of condensed milk in choco chip cookies, but i like it! i'm going to christchurch next week...i'll keep my eye out in the bakeries for cookies.

Ithy said...

Hi, I was wondering what you could use if you don't like ground almonds? Thanks