Carly's Soft & Chewy Cookies Makes 24

These cookies are great. They are soft, chewy and ultra moreish. This is not a joke. The first batch I ever made, we made 20, and I ate six pretty much straight out of the oven. What I love about these cookies, is that they stay chewy the day after baking them, which is great, and there is no need for anything such as keeping them in bread to keep them soft (apparently this helps?!) Also, the dough will stay chilled in your fridge for a few days, although I tend to freeze half of the dough so I always have some to hand. One other thing, you can substitute the choc chips and Mini Eggs for any kind of toppings. I like dark chocolate and orange zest, have a play around with the flavours, it may really pay off! 

  Ingredients 

 250g unsalted butter, softened 

250g caster sugar 

200g light brown sugar 

2 lightly beaten large eggs 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

480g plain flour 

1 tbsp baking powder 

100g chocolate chips 

Small bag of mini eggs (or approx 60g of any other topping, ie smarties, peanut M&Ms, more chocolate chips) 

  Method 

 Cream your butters and sugars together. This seems a little impossible at first, but stick with it, it will go soft and well combined and fluffy.

It should look like this. 

 Now to add your beaten eggs and your venilla extract. Mix this well to get a thick and gloopy consistency, like so:

Now pour in your flour and baking powder and mix in to get yourself a dough, before adding your chocolate chips and stirring well. It will now look like this:

At this point you need to roll out some cling film and place it on a flat surface. Now plop your dough (sorry but 'plop' is the best way to describe this)on the cling film and cover it up. If, like me you are looking at halving the dough and you want to put the other half in the freezer, you can try to make, as best you can, a sausage shape. I do this by forming a rough sausage shape with the dough while it is uncovered and laying on the cling film, then as I am covering it with the clingfilm, keep rolling until I am happy with the shape using the ends of the cling film. That did not type very well, I hope it makes sense (if not try You Tube!) But here is a picture so you get roughly what I mean!

Now, chill this dough, for at least two hours. I like to make this on a Friday Night and use it the next evening, but as a minimum, leave it for two hours. If freezing, freeze straight away, and I will tell you what to do with the frozen dough later. Now all you need to do once the dough is chilling is line some baking trays with greaseproof paper and preheat your oven to 180 degrees, 160 fan or Gas Mark 4. Uncover your dough, and taking pieces in your hand roll them into small balls before flattening them on the baking sheet. I made the balls about golf ball size, and when flattened they were about 1cm thick, like so:

Make sure you leave lots of room for the cookies to spread. I got 6 to one sheet (and my sheets are pretty large!). Place the cookies in the oven for 8-10 minutes, then bring them out and place your mini eggs/smarties/choc chips in them.

Pop them back in the oven for about 4-5 minutes, or until you notice the edges starting to go golden in colour. Bring them out of the oven and allow to cool slightly. They will be soft, they are meant to be. Now you can pour yourself a big glass of milk and tuck in!

Now, if you are using frozen dough, take it out of the freezer and leave for 5-10 minutes, and simply slice (hence the sausage shape) press lightly and pop in the oven as normal! 

Enjoy guys! xx