Classic Chocolate Drop Cookies

This was my first time baking chocolate drop cookies.

I watched Anna Olson's Youtube video recently and decided to have a go.

The first attempt went badly.  The cookies were rather hard because I used butter spread instead of pure butter.

The second attempt went well and the cookies tasted excellent.  This time, I used shortening for cookies and pastry.  I even remembered the recipe by heart this time.

For cup-to-gram measurement, the US-UK conversion comes from the link below:
http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/531168/cups-to-grams-converter

Chocolate Drop Cookie recipe by Anna Olson

Wet ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (115g)
½ cup packed light brown sugar (90g)
½ cup granulated sugar (90g)
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract (10 ml)

Dry ingredients
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour (185g)
1 tbsp cornstarch (15ml)
½ tsp baking soda (7.5g)
½ tsp salt (7.5g)

To be added last
1 ½ cup chocolate chips (225g)
1 cup lightly toasted, coarsely chopped pecans (optional) (150g) (I used roasted walnuts)

(Note:I am planning to make another batch of cookies using a reduced amount of sugar because I find 180g of sugar is a bit too much for my teeth)

Below are the photos of the cookies:

Photo 1: 1st attempt- cookie balls before baking

Photo 2: 1st attempt- freshly made cookies

Photo 3: 2nd attempt- cooled and ready to eat cookies

Photo 4: 2nd attempt - cookies ready for storage

Cooking with homemade orange zest without a grater

Today, I made vanilla cookies to fill up my biscuit tin.  And, I decided to make use of the orange zest that I made yesterday.

orange zest

I could taste the orange zest in the biscuit.  Not bad.  Soak the dried skins in hot water for 10 seconds before using them.  This will definitely soften the skins.

I am going to use the lemon zest in my next project, the Classic Streusel Blueberry Muffins by Anna Olso.  

Classic Streusel Blueberry Muffins by Anna Olson

Baking stuff Part 1: How to make fondant

I came across online videos on how to make your own fondant instead of paying up to £8.50 for a tub from my local supermarket.

The ingredients needed for making fondant are given below:

Icing sugar or powdered sugar
Glycerine
Gelatine
Liquid glucose (corn syrup or Lyle & Son's golden syrup)
Milk
Butter
Vanilla extract
Water - from the kitchen tap
Marshmallows (some recipes use marshmallows)

I found these ingredients at the local Waitrose Upminster branch in Essex, UK.

Homemade fondant

Vanilla Cookies

I made this simple cookie yesterday to make me happy.

The ingredients are as follows:

Cookie dough:
300g plain flour
110g sugar
150g cooking oil
2 spoonfuls of vanilla extract
a pinch of baking powder
a pinch of baking soda
a pinch of salt

Egg wash :
an egg yolk


Steps

1.  Mix all ingredients together until they form into a dough.

2.  Make balls and place them on a non-stick baking tray.

3.  Apply the egg wash on the cookies.  Make a light dent on the cookies.

4.  Bake them in the oven for 22 minutes.  Take them out of the oven and let the cookies cool down for one hour.  Enjoy!!!

This one was baked for 25 minutes.