Child-Approved Choc Chip Cookies

Since lemon cheesecakes are not always "child friendly", I wanted to bake something else for Quikong's 3 ½ year old niece, J, who was going to be at the birthday party last Saturday night. I decided to make the classic choc chip cookies.

I'm pleased to reported that these cookies got J's approval. It also got two thumbs up from Quikong, who said that "these are seriously good". This is a big deal because he can be quite a harsh critic of my baking and cooking. I thought the cookies were a little sweet for me. It's probably because I prefer to use dark choc in my cookies and I used milk choc for these ones since kids tend to prefer plain/milk choc bits. The texture is perfect though - crispy on the outside but slightly chewy towards the middle.

I placed the cookies in this pretty plastic Chinese take-away box (4 for $2) and it was cute to see J carrying the box around. I bought the little blue dinosaur for J's adorable little 2 months old brother, W.

"Child-Approved" Choc Chip Cookies
from Bill Granger's Sydney Food

125g unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups brown sugar, tightly packed
1 tspn vanilla essence
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 ½ cups plain flour
a pinch of salt
1 ½ cups chocolate bits/chips

1
Preheat oven to 180°C. Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy. Add vanilla and egg and stir to combine. Stir in the sifted flour, baking powder and salt till just combined. Fold through chocolate chips.

2
Place spoonfuls of cookie mixture on a greased and lined baking tray, allowing room for spreading. Cook for 15-20 minutes, until they turn pale gold (tip: DO NOT bake longer than that, unless you want very crispy cookies).

3
Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring cookies on a wire rack to cool further.

Makes about 24 cookies

TIP: I froze half of the cookie dough for another time. Roll the dough into a log and keep in a plastic wrap and foil in the freezer. To bake, thaw slightly and slice into 1 cm think before baking.