Delightfully Wicked Chocolate Chip Cookies

As an act of pure civic duty I have very selflessly set myself the task of discovering the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. So, much to my children's delight, I have been experimenting and modifying, and while I'm not sure I have the best yet (I think I should keep testing ;) ), I certainly have some damn fine and insanely yummy cookies. I'd love to hear how they vanish in your house.

NB: I'm not sure these fall under the Paleo diet but I won't tell if you won't.

Warning: extremely moreish!!

Delightfully Wicked 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cornflour
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 170 grams butter
• 250 grams of dark chocolate
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ cup white sugar
• 2  eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1.  Melt the butter and half of the chocolate in a double boiler. Allow mixture to cool a bit.
2.  Cream the cooled mixture and the sugar with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Adding in the eggs, one at a time, mixing some more.
3. Sift all the dry ingredients together and then add to the butter mixture and mix together. (here you could mix the wet mixture into another bowl holding all the dry ingredients which would give you a wonderful bowl to lick but I hate washing up so I'm a one bowl wonder).
4. Break up the remaining chocolate into chunks and add to batter- I like to bash a block against the bench while still in the wrapper preferring uneven chunks to little uniform chips you can buy (you could also add nuts here as well).
5. Refrigerate for 15 minutes while your oven heats to a moderate temperature (180 degrees). I don't know why this step is so important, I'm sure there is some Hestonesque reason, but it is, trust me.
6. Onto a greased trap (or silicone baking tray) spoon roughly formed cookie blobs (yes high tech, you don't want your cookies to evenly formed but rather a bit rough and ready for some texture).
7. Bake for between 10-15 minutes (depending upon your oven- mine likes about 13 minutes).
8. Allow to cool, if you can stand to wait, and then demolish alone or with friends.

I recommend cooking only half the batch at ago and keeping the other half in the fridge for the next day. This slows the cookies consumption down, but only marginally- cookies will still disappear in the middle of the night. You could even portion out the cookies and freeze until needed. You never know when you might have a cookie emergency (or a chocolate- these double for both).

EnJoy