heston’s chocolate chip cookies (updated)

Welcome to the brand new London Bakes! I’ve been working with the very lovely and very talented Erin and Melissa at Wooden Spoons Kitchen over the last couple of months to (finally) move my blog over to wordpress and, in the process, give the whole thing a total makeover!

I’m absolutely thrilled with the result – it’s far, far better than I could ever imagined all thanks to the vision, hard work and endless patience of Erin and Melissa. They make a great team.

In addition to the new design, there are a couple of spiffy new features too (like a visual recipe index that will actually include everything and the ability to save/print all the recipes thanks to zip list) which I hope will make it easier to find and enjoy all of the recipes here.

As the site was getting updated, I thought it only fitting to give one of my favourite recipes a bit of an update.

A couple of years ago, I made some chocolate chip cookies from one of Heston Blumenthal’s cookbook. It was one of the few recipes that didn’t contain any hard-to-find ingredients or require the use of specialist equipment and I was intrigued as to how his recipe would differ from the many hundreds of thousands of recipes out there. They were, at the time, my favourite chocolate chip cookies. They’re a bit of a project as you have to make your own chocolate chips – swirls of chocolate truffle really – but the effort is more than worth it.

In the years since I’ve made them, I changed my approach to baking though and become more confident in experimenting with alternative ingredients and more wholesome substitutions, feeling my way through the world of wholegrain flours and natural sweeteners.  These cookies were ripe for a makeover.

These cookies use a mix of kamut flour and einkorn flour (both available in the UK from Dove’s Farm). It is one of my favourite blends at the moment – the kamut is buttery and smooth, the einkorn is sweet and mild – and is an easy substitution for plain flour. Coconut oil instead of butter gives the cookies a melt-in-the-mouth quality. The only coconut oil I’ve ever seen here is unrefined so there is a slight coconutty flavour to these but if you use refined, you won’t taste anything at all. Similarly, coconut sugar doesn’t really taste like coconut but has a rich toffee flavour that is like brown sugar but better.

So, new look cookies for a new look site. I hope you enjoy both of them!

heston’s chocolate chip cookies (updated)

Yield: Approx. 16 cookies

Now that I'm a bit more experienced with chocolate chip cookie recipes, I can see that the main way that the Heston recipe deviates from others it the fact that you add your fat (be it butter or coconut oil) cold and cream the ingredients for much longer than you would expect. And the whole making your own chocolate chips thing... Although it's a bit of a faff, the chocolate truffles can be made ahead of time and kept in the freezer until you want to make the cookies. Once you've tried the technique, regular chocolate chips just seem so dull. I've made these cookies with plain flour and spelt flour and they've worked fine so don't worry if you can't get hold of kamut and/or einkorn flour

Ingredients

• 60g (1/4 cup) heavy/double cream
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 65g (2 1/2 oz) dark chocolate, chopped
• 90g (1/2 cup) coconut oil, cold
• 150g (1 1/4 cup) coconut sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 125g (1 cup) kamut flour
• 95g (3/4 cup) einkorn flour
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee

Instructions

1. To make the chocolate chips, bring the cream and maple syrup to a simmer. Place the chopped dark chocolate in a heat proof bowl and pour the cream over. Let sit for a couple of minutes until all the chocolate has melted. Let the mixture cool and then pour it onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. When the mixture has reached room temperature, put it in the freezer until solid. Once hardened, chop the chocolate into rough squares and then freeze until needed.
2. To make the cookies, pre heat the oven to 180C/350F (fan). Cream the coconut oil and sugar together until light and fluffy - this may take a while as your coconut oil is solid. Add the egg and vanilla and keep whisking until incorporated. Add the dry ingredients and mix for 3-5 minutes until a dough is formed. At the last minute add the frozen chocolate chips and mix to incorporate.
3. Place a ice cream scoop of dough (approx 40g) onto parchment paper with plenty of space around each cookie (I got 6-8 on a baking tray). Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool on the baking tray before removing to a wire rack.

Notes

Adapted from Heston Blumenthal's Chocolate Chip Cookies

3.1

http://londonbakes.com/2013/10/hestons-chocolate-chip-cookies-updated.html

PS I know there are a few little things that need to be updated like a couple of dud links and the fact that a lot of the old posts aren’t properly formatted yet but I hope it won’t take too long to iron these little kinks out. Let me know if you spot anything major!