Naturally the type of ingredients used in a recipe affect the way the finished product will turn out. The recipe calls for sugar and butter, but which sugar and butter will give you the type of cookie you want? Granulated only will see your cookies spread much more giving a thinner and crunchier bake, whereas brown sugar will give a much chewier cookie (this recipe uses a combination of both!). Melted butter also gives a much chewier texture than creamed butter which a lot of cookie recipes and most of my cake recipes call for. The use of cornflour in this recipe also adds to the gooey-chewiness of these cookies. So clearly everything in this recipe is chosen to make these cookies as moist and deliciously chewy as possible, and I would say it worked! They are sooo chewy and moist with just the right amount of buttery sweetness, and who doesn't love smarties?! No one, that's who...
Before the success of these delicious cookies I had a few disastrous cookies come out of my oven... Although, I do put some of the blame onto my oven as it is just not baking evenly recently (A bakers nightmare!!). Some cookies just spread faaar too much and they ended up looking like one big cookie tray! They still tasted beautifully though so I knew the recipe was fine, and in my books there is nothing wrong with ONE GIANT COOKIE!! I tried to bake a marshmallow in the middle of some others which didn't work quite as i'd anticipated. But this recipe has potential so I am determined to perfect this for you! For now this recipe was just too good not to share. The best part is that you can add nearly anything you want into the dough if you don't want smarties: nuts, raisins, chocolate chips... Be creative!
Ingredients: (makes approximately 12 - 16 cookies)
280g plain flour (sifted)
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp cornflour
170g butter (melted)
1 egg and 1 extra egg yolk
75g granulated sugar
175g light brown sugar
2 tbsps vanilla extract (I use Madagascan vanilla bean paste)
Approximately 1 cup of mini smarties (or chocolate chips or whatever you choose to use) plus extra for decoration
Method:
1. In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda and cornflour and mix well.
2. Melt the butter slowly until about half is melted. Stir until the rest melts. This method is preferable to melting all the butter in the microwave as it gets much thinner and greasier that way and does not allow for thick, chewy cookies! Stir in both of the sugars until no lumps remain.
3. Whisk the egg and extra yolk into the sugar and butter mixture then stir in the vanilla.
4. Add the wet ingredients mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until fully combined but don't overmix! Then fold in the mini smarties. It is definitely time to taste eat A LOT of the dough at this point, it is amaaazing but very more-ish!
5. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave to chill in the fridge for as long as possible - the longer the better really. Overnight in a fridge is more than sufficient.
6. Once the dough is chilled and ready to bake, preheat the oven to 160c and prepare a baking tray with greaseproof paper or a silicone baking mat. Take fairly large amounts of dough (around 2-3 tbsps) and roll into a ball-like shape that is slightly taller than it is wide- this will stop the cookies spreading too widely and becoming too thin and crispy! I pushed a few extra smarties into the top of the dough-ball at this point but if you decide to do step 8 this may be unnecessary.
8. I personally like to poke a few more smarties into the top of the cookies once they're out of the oven to make them a bit more appealing and colourful!
Voila! Perfectly chewy, colourful cookies! I really hope you like this recipe and as always I would love to hear how you get on or any feedback on the recipe!
Teri x
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