Chocolate chip cookie recipe

This fab recipe from Nigella Lawson’s book Kitchen is a massive favourite in our house. For a change, I’m sticking almost exactly to Nigella’s recipe, without any real modifications other than the size and type of chocolate. This makes at least 14 delicious cookies.

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You will need

  • 150g soft unsalted butter
  • 125g soft light brown sugar
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 egg, plus an additional egg yolk
  • 300g plain flour
  • Half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
  • About 200g chocolate chunks/chips – I often use half dark and half white chocolate, but it’s up to you what you use!

Step 1
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and put some baking paper on two baking sheets. Melt the butter on a gentle heat and leave to cool slightly.

Step 2
Weigh out the brown and caster sugar, put them in a big mixing bowl and then beat in the butter.

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Step 3
Get the flour ready by weighing it out and adding bicarbonate of soda. You can just weigh it out and leave it on the scales, so there’s no need to use an extra bowl and create extra washing up!

Step 4
Beat the vanilla extract, egg and extra egg yolk into the butter/sugar mixture. It should now be a rather satisfying viscous consistency.

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Step 5

Mix in a little of the flour and the chocolate chunks/chips. This is a slightly different order to the way Nigella suggests (she puts the chocolate in after the flour), but I’ve found it’s easier to mix the chocolate in if you do it when the mixture is still runny.

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Step 6
Mix the flour into this mixture, adding a little at a time. I warn you, this gets quite hard work and you will develop good arm muscles!! But persevere until all the flour/bicarb is thoroughly mixed in to create a fairly stiff mixture.

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Step 7
Use an ice cream scoop and teaspoon to measure out the cookie dough and place little dollops onto the baking sheet. You don’t need to flatten them and it doesn’t matter in the slightest if they don’t look pretty!

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Step 8
Bake them until they look lightly toasted and they have the classic cracks over the top. Nigella reckons this takes 15-17 minutes, but I’ve found that mine are done in 13 minutes in our oven. They look slightly puffed up when they come out of the oven, but they will sink slightly as they cool – this is normal.

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You’ll need to leave them to cool completely once they’re out of the oven, as they will still carry on cooking a bit when they first come out, and they’ll be rather squidgy (especially as the chocolate chunks will be melted), so do NOT attempt to transfer them onto a cooling tray or move them at all until they are completely cold.

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Step 9
Eat! Enjoy them any time of day with a nice cup of coffee.

1 Comment on Chocolate chip cookie recipe

  1. Sue Langley
    March 22, 2015 at 6:38 pm (9 years ago)

    They look tasty! Well done Rachel.