Golden, soft with a slight crunch and ever so slightly under-baked in the middle with a solid 50:50 ratio of dough to chocolate chunk. A homage to my much loved (and very missed) Bennett Street Dairy cookies in Bondi, the little cafe with the curiously long queue at the corner of my road.
The trick to cookies that don't flatten and spread too thin in the oven is to chill the dough before you bake it, which solidifies the fat (butter) in the cookies and therefore takes longer to melt in the oven. It also allows the flour and sugar to 'hydrate' and soak up the liquids in the dough.
Total time to make : 90 minutes (including 1hr chill time) Time to prep : 15 minutes
Time to bake : 18 minutes
Servings : 10 large cookies
Ingredients
180g butter, room temperature
35g sugar, I used light brown
150g condensed milk
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla paste or essence
100g dark chocolate chips/chunks/roughly chopped up bar of chocolate
Extra flaked salt to top (optional)
Method
Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla and condensed milk together in a bowl until soft and smooth with no clumps
Combine the dry ingredients in a seperate bowl and gently stir to mix everything together, then tip this into the wet mix bowl. Use a wooden spoon or clean hands to mix everything together until it forms the cookie dough base. The dough should be firm but sticky
Finally, gently fold in the chocolate chunks (I used a roughly chopped up bar of dark chocolate) until they're evenly dispersed
Wrap the dough in cling film and make it into a flat disc, pizza-base shape to chill in the fridge. Chill for a minimum of 1hr
Just before you're ready to bake, preheat a fan oven to 175C and line some baking trays with non-stick baking paper
Once your dough has chilled, remove from the fridge and unwrap. Use a larger ice cream scooper or a tablespoon to portion 2 heaped tablespoons of dough for each cookie. I wish I had a sports-ball sized reference here, but I don't ... larger than a golf ball and probably half the size of a tennis ball 😂 ?
Roll dough into a ball with your hands and place on the baking trays, baring in mind they will expand in the oven so leaving some space between each one, you might need to split the recipe over a few baking trays. I like to sprinkle a tiny pinch of sea salt (my favourite is Maldon) over before baking
Bake for about 18 minutes, they should be just turning gold on the edges and they'll look under-baked in the middle but once they cool they'll turn soft and chewy. Keep them in the oven for 2 minutes longer if you like them crunchier
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for at least 30 minutes before you pick them up, or they'll fall apart
Enjoy! x
Nutritional Information
(per cookie)
320 calories
5g protein, 30g carbs, 19g fat
Good to know:
You can use any sugar, I prefer light brown sugar but other types of brown sugar or any white sugar work well too
Dough can be kept in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Store in ready made cookie-dough balls then bake straight from frozen for about 20 minutes
To store once baked, keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days