Bill Granger

With Bill Granger's recipes in hand, my baked goods have turned out pretty good so far. The first cookbook I got not so long ago - "Bill Granger Everyday Food" - a farewell gift from my brother, is simply one of the best ever. Of course it helps that Bill Granger is the chef/ owner of the acclaimed Bills in Sydney, he's Australian AND I love Oz + everything about it. His recipes are also simple, easy-to-follow and oh so yummy! Its almost always a guarantee that whatever you pick from him is good and will turn out good ;) Oh plus, he uses both the Metric and English system of measurement (to cater to all users I guess). Sorry! I'm in the U.S! Everything here is based on the English system. Geez. Anyway I had in mind to bake a batch of cookies this weekend (after 2 very failed attempts in scones and muffins! boo. I'll save that story for another day) so when I saw this recipe online for his chocolate chip cookies, how could I resist? 125 g. (4 oz.) unsalted butter, softened 1 1/4 cups tightly packed brown sugar (I use dark brown sugar) 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 1 egg, lightly beaten 1 ½ cups plain flour ½ teaspoon baking powder a pinch of salt 1½ cups of chocolate bits (I use semi-sweet dark choc bits) Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F) Place butter and sugar in a bowl, and beat until light and creamy. Add the vanilla and egg and beat again. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt until just combined - this will seem like way too much flour, but just keep folding and folding, it will incorporate! Fold through chocolate chips*. Place spoonfuls of cookie mixture on a lined baking tray, allowing room for spreading. Cook for 15-20 minutes, until they turn pale gold. Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before placing the cookies on a wire rack to cool further. Makes 16. * I modified the recipe a leeetle and added um.. 1 cup macadamia and 1 ½ cup oatmeal in addition to the choc chips (The BF says I'm a greedy guts. Ha. Who's having the cookies I'd say! ) The mixture forms into a dough and I realised doesn't spread too much during baking as the oatmeal kinda "holds" it together, I think. Also as this recipe calls for brown sugar, the resulting texture is a soft, chewy cookie rather than a hard, crunchy one. Oh and it yielded 20 (not 16) cookies for me - FYI. Enjoy!