We Durvillea Girls love. to. bake.
Yesterday (Labour Day) was my friend Tim’s 28th birthday. Tim has quite the sweet tooth - so I decided to bake him some world-famous-in-my-family cookies. My mother discovered this recipe several years ago in Bill Granger’s ‘Sydney Food’ cookbook. I highly recommend this recipe to anyone — my friends love me a lot when I make them.
- Please enjoy my ‘Wicked’ notebook…
Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees celcius.
Now, being the young independent woman that I now am, starting up my new kitchen, I have yet to purchase an electric beater. So yes, mam - I did it like they did before electricity came about… I creamed that unsalted butter and brown sugar with a wooden spoon! It wasn’t actually too difficult, just make sure your butter is nice and softened first (NB you don’t want to melt your butter at all, as you’ll think you have a nice creamy texture, but then butter will come back up to room temperature and it will be no more).
Creamed them the old school way...
Also starting up my new pantry, I found myself without any vanilla extract! However, luckily I have such well decked-out friendly neighbours… this vanilla bean paste is pure luxury. However, I used about half the quantity of vanilla required as this is more concentrated.
Mmm vanilla - borrowed from friendly neighbour J.T.
I even said “Hi-diddly-ho, Neighbour!”
After adding the vanilla, I mixed in a lightly beaten Astrolabe Farm fresh egg.
Free-range, organic, of course!
When you add eggs to creamed butter and sugar, don’t fret if it looks like it is curdling! Once you add your dry ingredients, it will come right.
Adding the lightly beaten egg
All whipped, light and fluffy!
Now you’re ready to fold in your dry ingredients – at this stage I like to ditch the wooden spoon for a good spatula.
I usually use Swiss Chocolate with this recipe when I’m being a little bit fancy, however, this time I used some good old Cadbury milk chocolate buttons (as this is what I had in my cupboard). I do prefer to use bigger pieces/chunks than chocolate chips.
Classic kiwiana Edmonds
I start folding in the 1 & 1/2 cups of chocolate pieces when the dry ingredients are about 3/4 combined, so that way you are working the mixture a bit less.
Important not to over-mix
At this point, you can also spoon the mixture into glad-wrap or grease-proof paper and create little logs that you can freeze, slice and bake at a moment’s notice!
Working their magic
They are best placed in the centre of your oven. I like to take them out when that are starting to get quite toasty brown around the perimeter. I like a bit of crunch – but they should still be soft in the middle. (FYI I would usually line my baking tray with grease-proof paper, however I didn’t have any, so I greased my tray with a little bit of melted butter, just in case!).
- Baked and ready for cooling
Now, they may not be the neatest looking little cookies – more on the rustic side – but holy moly they are tasty.
- I know what you’re thinking — is that cookie going to fit in that jar? It did.
I even dressed them with a bow.
P.S. Hannah (Jules Taylor employee and also Tim’s other-half) made him a pretty epic Bart Simpson birthday cake. I am going to try and secure a photo of it from her, and put it up on our facebook page this week (if she lets me)!
-Genevieve
