Carluccio's

This is a little 'pick me up' tiramisu I shared with D when we were at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. Layers of sponge fingers soaked in coffee and mascarpone cheese, dusted with cocoa powder. It was lush and I'm so glad they only gave us a portion because if it was up to me, I would have sat myself down with the entire tray of 6 servings and a fork and nom nom nommmmm. I love tiramisus and this was particularly yummy. The coffee here wasn't good enough for D though. He's got pretty high standards when it comes to coffee. His grandparents were coffee growers and he's not found a good cup of coffee yet in England. Any suggestions for great coffee places are most welcome.

Birthday Dad

My father doesn't like cake. But as it was his birthday, cake and candles were mandatory. We celebrated by having dinner at Red Chilli, Manchester. The food was as good as ever (Red Chilli is wonderfully consistent) and the waiter initiated the birthday song whilst traipsing in with a fully lit cake! We are very blessed.

The best cookie dough recipe (so far)

Everyone's got their own definition of the perfect cookie, so I would qualify the title of the post by saying that this is the perfect cookie dough recipe for me.

Five cookies sitting on my windowsill

I also don't think I've found THE recipe yet, and so am still experimenting. This is the basic dough to which you can add whatever you want, toffee chips, chocolate chips, raisins, swirls of espresso, nuts, blueberries - go wild!

Crunchy cookie = good

To me, the perfect cookie is:

1. Crunchy (think Famous Amos); and

2. Possibly just ever so slightly chewy right in the middle...

I do not like big soft chewy cookies (think Millie's) or worse, powdery crumbly cookies (think shortbreads). Yech at the powdery floury aftertaste. Yech Yuck Bleruch.

Walnut, cashew nut, peanut...and a swirl of coffee

I'd like to share this latest recipe. It's work-in-progress, but I think it's pretty close to what I'm looking for.

     1 and 1/2 sticks of butter

     1/2 cup brown sugar

     2/3 cup granulated sugar

     1 egg

     1 tsp vanilla essence

     1/2 tsp salt

     2 cups of plain flour

     1 tsp baking soda

1. Cream sugar and butter in a bowl until well combined.
2. Add egg and vanilla essence. Mix well
3. Add the dry ingredients - plain flour, salt and baking soda, and form into a dough. At this stage you can add your nuts, raisins, chocolate chips etc.
4. Next, roll the dough into a cylinder and place it in the fridge for at least 30 min. YOU MUST DO THIS. Especially if you live in the tropics. Lukewarm cookie dough makes bad cookies. Don't ask me why, just trust me. I'm yet to figure out why myself. Maybe one day, if I ever do a baking 101 class, my pâtisserie teacher will tell me. Until then, I do this on the basis that my refrigerated cookie dough always yields better cookies than room temperature ones.
5. Preheat the oven to 175 deg celcius.
6. Cut out your cookies into discs and place them on a greased, non-stick baking tray, 2 inches apart. Greasing is mandatory.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven for 12 minutes, and keep a close watch on them as the bubble deliciously.
8. Remove tray from the oven, and let the cookies cool completely before transferring them. Do not attempt to touch/move your cookies when they're even remotely warm as they are very soft at this stage and will fall apart. I leave mine to cool and harden for at least 2 hours.

Enjoy your crunchy cookies!

The photos are of the most recent batch I made. They are wonderfully crunchy with a slight chewy centre. I put raisins, cashews, walnuts, brazil nuts and swirls of espresso in them. I love the chewiness of caramelised raisins and crunchiness of the nuts which have roasted in the cookies. Yup - definitely a chew/crunch fan :)

What type of cookie are you?