Chocolate chunk cookies

These cookies are almost always to be found in my fridge.  They are full of oats, sultanas, coconut and (dark) chocolate and they really are delicious.  They are adapted from this recipe (thank you Martha) and if you only ever make one more batch of cookies in your life, these are the ones to try.  I've set out below the measurements I use - maybe a little more chocolate than Martha, and I don't ever bother with the walnuts.  Oh yes, and while Martha squeezes 48 cookies out of her dough, I usually end up with about 25.  Can't imagine why this is.

8oz unsalted butter
3oz caster sugar
3oz light soft brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8oz flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5 tsp baking powder
0.25 tsp salt
5oz oats
6oz sultanas
10oz chocolate
2.5oz desiccated coconut

This recipe is quite a workout for the arms, both in chopping the chocolate and in mixing.  (I don't have one of those fancy mixers, just a bowl and a wooden spoon.)  I usually start by chopping the chocolate.  I use three bars of supermarket value chocolate and it tastes absolutely fine.



I always chop it with a bread knife into pieces about 1 - 1.5cm square.  You may find that you then have to spend the next half hour protecting said chocolate from passing small boys who somehow always miraculously appear just as the wrappers are opened.  They have hearing like bats when it comes to chocolate.  Other times they are mysteriously deaf.

Then it's really just a matter of mixing everything.  Start by creaming the butter and caster and light brown sugars.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix.  Then add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt and combine until smooth.  Lastly, add the oats, sultanas, chocolate and desiccated coconut. 

Put spoonfuls on baking paper on a baking sheet and bake for 9 minutes (or until just browning at the edges) at 180C / 350F / Gas 4.  Leave to cool.

I like my chocolate hard and cold, so I store them in the fridge, and they do seem to keep really well.  In this house there's always a scuffle as everyone under the age of 10 tries to look at the bottoms to see which one has the most chocolate, and I end up shrieking, "Take the one you touched, take the one you touched."  Yesterday the littlest boy (who is also the cheekiest boy) touched all of them.  Sigh. 

Enjoy your weekend.  I have heard that the sun is going to shine.