Those Cakes We Like … Are Going For Gold!

What better snack could there be for a hot summer day, with the Paris 2024 Olympics in the background, than delicious, golden, chewy cookies. Bursting with chunks of caramelized white chocolate  and strawberries, or chocolate chips with freeze-dried raspberry pieces. Serve them warm with plenty of ice cream, or let them cool and nibble on them with a glass of milk. Who am I to tell you the best way to enjoy these delicious treats?

The Chocolate Chip Cookie has a relatively short history, famously invented in the 1930s by Ruth Wakefield, the American chef and owner of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. The Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie is actually more American than apple pie. First appearing in Wakefield’s 1938 cookbook, Tried and True, the recipe called for chunks of semi-sweet Nestle chocolate, suspended in the cookie dough in such a way that it did not melt into the dough when baked. From its creation, the Chocolate Chip Cookie was intended to be eaten with ice cream, and yet it is now more widely associated with a glass of milk (a crying shame, if you ask me). Since the 1930s the original Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie has been adapted by countless chefs and home cooks: Fruit, nuts and marshmallows have been added to the recipe, milk chocolate has been replaced or combined with dark or white chocolate, even the cookie dough itself has had chocolate, orange, or other flavourings added to it. The texture has been adapted to suit different tastes, with gooey, crunchy, or chewy each having their fans. For myself, I favour a soft, chewy cookie as a dessert, and a crunchy one as a snack, but I’m all in for cookies of any variety.

One of my favourite cookie recipes calls for a tablespoon of golden syrup to create the chewy texture I like so much. When I was thinking of what to bake for you this week, I decided I wanted to recreate that recipe with the twist of strawberries and caramelized white chocolate. There are a fair few people out there who aren’t particularly keen on white chocolate — however, when caramelized it develops a delicious, nutty flavor that goes beautifully with the sweetness of strawberries. The use of a good quality strawberry jam, preferably the kind with pieces of strawberry in, is perfect to replace the golden syrup and create the soft, chewy texture that I adore.

This cookie recipe is incredibly easy, perfect for baking with children, especially since you can fill them with any number of sweet treats. They also make perfect rewards/bribes (please note, I cannot guarantee their effectiveness when used on Supreme Court Justices).

For those of you who favour a soft cookie with a slightly gooey centre, you could replace the strawberry jam with a freeze-dried strawberry or raspberry, or just go with the chocolate chip of your choosing.

For those of you who need to count your carbohydrates, this recipe will make 18 small cookies at 30g of carbohydrate each, or 540g of carbs for the entire batch if you make the chewy, caramelized white chocolate and strawberry version. For a soft, milk chocolate and raspberry cookie, it works out at 25.7g of carbs per cookie (based on 18 cookies), or 462.6g of carbs for the whole batch.

The ice cream will be extra.

Large bowl or stand mixer

Wooden spoon

Digital kitchen scales

Measuring spoons

2 x Baking sheet

Non-stick baking paper

150 g butter (salted is fine)

80 g sugar

80 g light brown sugar (e.g. demerara)

1 medium egg

2 tsp vanilla essence

225 g all-purpose flour (add an extra 25 g if using jam)

 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ tsp salt

200 g white, or any other chocolate

6 tbsp good quality strawberry jam (I recommend Bonne Maman), or 25 g freeze dried fruit

The first thing you’ll need to do if you want to make the caramelized white chocolate version of this recipe is to caramelize your white chocolate. This is very easy to do. Preheat your oven to 250F (120C) and break your white chocolate into small, evenly sized pieces. Place the chocolate onto a small baking sheet (the kind with a rim), and place into the oven for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and give it a good stir. Don’t worry if it seems to go lumpy, this is normal.

Repeat this until the white chocolate takes on a golden-brown color (this usually takes between 30 and 60 minutes). If you’re unsure what gold looks like, I would suggest consulting with Simone Biles.

Allow your chocolate to set, then break it into small chunks. Chill these in the freezer for at least 30 minutes (this helps them to hold their shape as the cookie bakes).

Line your baking sheets with non-stick baking paper and preheat your oven to 350 F (180C).

Combine your butter and sugar in your bowl or stand mixer and mix until it becomes pale and fluffy. Add your egg and vanilla essence and mix thoroughly.

Add your flour, salt, and bicarbonate of soda and fold it gently into your butter mix (the easiest way to do this is to use a wooden spoon in a figure of eight movement).

Add your chocolate and/or fruit to the mix and use the same figure of eight motion to fold them through the cookie dough.

Place heaped teaspoon sized balls of cookie dough onto your baking paper covered trays, be careful to leave at least a hand’s width between each cookie in order to give them space to spread.

Bake for 10-12 minutes; you can go up to 15 minutes if you prefer a slightly crunchier cookie.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling, or place in a bowl and top with ice cream if that’s more up your street.

School starts again next month here in the UK, so I plan to share a lunchbox staple with you — sausage rolls. But I will, of course, be putting my own twist on the recipe. See you in September.

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