Life in our house has gotten very busy, very quickly, so I like to keep things simple when cooking at home. Keeping the kids occupied while they also learn key skills is so important to both my husband and me.
I am delighted my kids love to bake, and cookies are now a firm family favourite, for a treat. The cookies are delicious with a cup of warm milk, and great crumbled into vanilla ice cream for the ultimate cookies-and-cream dessert.
The five main ingredients for these quick cookies are always in my cupboard and fridge. The additional ingredients can be changed around very easily to make your own flavour combinations.
The mixture can be made in advance, portioned and frozen – just remove from the freezer one or two hours in advance and then bake it.
Some of our favourite cookie combinations are dark chocolate and roasted hazelnuts, cranberry and white chocolate, and candied orange peel and pistachio. I think I’m going to make fruit and nut ones next week.
Mary Jewell won the Euro-Toques Young Chef of the Year competition in 2010, while working at L'Ecrivain. She is now food manager at La Rousse Foods
Chocolate chip and hazelnut cookies
Makes 16 medium-size cookies but you can make them smaller if you like
Ingredients
280g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
130g soft brown sugar
100g caster sugar
170g butter (melted and cooled)
1 large egg, 1 large yolk (mixed)
125g chocolate chips (We use 72 per cent single-origin chocolate from Peru)
100g whole hazelnuts, roasted and crushed
Method
1. In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder well. Add the chocolate and roasted hazelnuts.
2. In another bowl, mix the sugar with the butter. The sugar needs to be well dissolved. When it is well combined add the egg and mix well.
3. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together with a wooden spoon. (The kids mix here and make a wish as they do so.)
4. When well mixed, use an ice-cream scoop to place scoops of the cookie dough on a tray lined with parchment paper, and chill them in the fridge for one hour, minimum. At this point I like to get the kids washing up.
5. When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 165 degrees Celsius, for a fan oven, or the equivalent. While waiting for the oven to warm up, take the cookie dough from the fridge and place it on a baking tray (I put eight scoops per tray, well spaced out).
6. Bake for 12-13 minutes, for a gooey centre.
7. Remove them from the oven and leave them to cool down. (These cookies will be soft when removed from the oven and will set as they cool down.)
Kitchen Cabinet is a series of recipes from chefs who are members of Euro-Toques Ireland who have come together during the coronavirus outbreak to share some of the easy, tasty things that they like to cook and eat at home #ChefsAtHome
