easy chewy BIG choc chip cookies

Do you ever get those times when you're craving a biscuit or something sweet?

To heck with the bikkies, what I want is a whacking BIG COOKIE!

I felt this way just the other day. It was a slow Saturday afternoon and I'd just returned from a walk to check out Rozelle markets, where I'd scoffed a hot dog with mustard and tomato sauce ($3). But it was a small hot dog (which was part of its appeal) and I needed something to tide me over till dinner time, which was still hours away. 

A simple recpe was called for, not too many ingredients and using items already in the pantry. Chocolate chip cookies are the answer (to life and everything!). In this instance, the cookies were made large, so they were soft on the inside and a bit crispy on the outside.

And because they're biggish, it's easy not to get carried away and eat to many. Well, that's the idea, anyway. I managed to put away 3 of these babies before I realised what had happened. And that's the beauty of a simple, big choc chip cookie.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes approx. 25

Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp.baking soda
170g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
½ cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups dark chocolate chips

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160C/325F. Line baking sheet/s with baking paper.
2. Use a mixer to cream together the butter and sugars until thoroughly combined.
3. Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter mixture, mixing well.
3. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and add to the butter and eggs. Stir until just combined, then add the chocolate chips and gently fold them through the batter.
4. Roll 2 tablespoons of the batter into balls and place onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving room for the cookies to spread. Flatten the balls slightly if you prefer a crisper cookie. Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Ingredients, including flour, white and brown sugar, vanilla, eggs and chocolate chips

Various stages of preparation: before creaming the butter and eggs; post-creaming; after adding the eggs.

The taller the scoop of cookie dough, the higher and therefore chewier the cookies will be.

Even a reflective photo screen is no barrier to Tabitha cat when there's cookies around.

As always, I ended up with a veritable mountain of cookies.

I stored what was left of the choc chip goodies cookies in a cake tin I got for my birthday (from Peter's of Kensington) - it's cat safe.

A motto for our times: Keep calm and bake on (or eat on, in my case).