My Chocolate Chip Cookies for Sweet New Zealand

It really doesn’t feel like it, but I got married one year ago today. Which means that one year and three weeks ago, I was locked in my kitchen, making batch after batch of my favourite chocolate chip cookies.

Lemme splain.

It's very hard to get past this stage without consuming the entire bowl of dough.

See, I’m American and Jonno is Kiwi, and we wanted to bring in elements of both our heritages to the food that we were serving, just to have some kind of direction to go in. We really went for this little mini theme in the deserts though. Our wedding cake was a traditional Christmas cake, Jonno’s favourite, made by Jonno’s mum. So I said, “Well then I have to have my favourite dessert in there somehow too!” We had the caterers do a bit of a dessert buffet with little mini bites of different things, like New York cheesecake (I die for this), kiwifruit pavlova (pillows of heaven), brownies (how could we not?), and a lemon curd-passionfruit shooter (apropos of absolutely nothing, but it was a hit). 

The pink cookies, or at least we tried to make them pink!  Still delicious though.

And I made four batches of chocolate chip cookies. How I decided that there needed to be four batches, which is approximately 4 hand-sized cookies for each of the 40 guests we invited, I’ll never know. What I do know is that we ended up taking about three quarters of them home with us. Not because they weren’t good though! I think it might have had something to do with how much other food there was to be consumed at the same time. I don’t think I took all that other food into account when I did my calculations!

But it worked out in the end though, because we were able to bring those cookies as our contribution for a BBQ and another party, which meant less cooking for me to do post-wedding and pre-Christmas/packing to move, so that made me very happy.

I think my love affair with all things chocolate chip cookie began back when at the rollerskating rink when I was 9 or 10. My best friend and I would spend Friday night skating around a stinky gymnasium, gossiping and giggling and working on our backward skating. Then we would risk life and limb and walk downstairs in our skates, just to buy some warm magical chocolate chip cookies. It made all the risk of skates flying out from under us as we gingerly side-stepped down two flights of stairs totally worth it. Totally. For sure.

These cookies really are all that and a box of chocolates. I’ve given out the recipe so many times, it’s more than I can count in my brain. I’ve made them in blue for the staff at a fundraising event I was a part of, and they went so fast that I never got any. I’ve made them in pink just for fun, and my workmates devoured them. They’re addicting. Kind of like heroin, but they don’t leave tell-tale track marks on your arms. Just crumbs in your lap. Deliciously addicting crumbs.

White chocolate chip Wish cookies. 

The trick to these cookies is under-baking them, so that they’re soft and moist and just melt in your mouth. You can freeze the dough and bake up to a year later – just roll the dough into a log, cover in baking paper and stick in a sealed plastic bag, and when you want to bake, just slice the dough into 8mm/1/4” slices, place on baking sheet, and you’re away laughing. And giggling maniacly.

You could substitute white chocolate chips for the chocolate ones, like I did above in the blueish-green cookies.  You could use M&M's too.  You could smother some vanilla ice cream between two of these puppies and then roll in even more chocolate chips for a sinfully cold treat.  You could even get cheeky and substitute another kind of flavouring in for the vanilla - strawberry perhaps?  This recipe is but the basic canvas for your artistic expression, rendered in butter, sugar, and chocolate.

But please, for the love of all things delicious, use good-quality chocolate chips, not the cheapo ones made using palm oil or whatever crap they’re putting in them these days. The good stuff, people. Nestle or Whittaker’s should do the trick.

I'm submitting this as part of Sweet New Zealand, a monthly blogging event for Kiwi foodies, hosted this month by the lovely Mairi at Toast!

Christina’s Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 225g (2 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 225g (2 sticks, 1/2 pound) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 350g or more (2 cups, 12 oz package) semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
2. Beat butter, sugars and vanilla in large mixer bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; gradually beat in flour mixture.
3. Stir in chocolate. Try not to eat too much of the dough now!  Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake in preheated 190 C/475 F oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
5. Cookies will keep for as long as you can stand not eating them, store in a sealed container.

Apologies for the crap photos, they are all pre-iPhone, and I haven't made these babies in a while for fear of taking them over to the corner and eating them all myself. 

For the Love of Food, And Cookies

HALP!! Can someone please tell me what day it is? What time of year?? What am I supposed to be making for dinner?!

I am so confused!

The weather’s just gone all glorious in Wellington in the past week or so, and all I want to do is sit outside with a sweet, fizzy adult beverage and read my book. But then when I read the blogs from America they’re all about Christmas and the cold and winter and leaves falling, and my body says, “Yes!! That’s what you should be feeling right now, the intense need to wear sweaters and bake massive amounts of cookies!!”


My cookies talk to me, do yours?

Well, I’ve certainly got the baking thing down. That might even be my life’s motto: When in doubt, bake. Maybe I should rename my blog to that?

Speaking of blogs!! I attended the first New Zealand Food Bloggers Conference last weekend in Auckland! My head is still exploding with all that I learned and the people that I met. It really was an amazing (and slightly scary) experience for me.

Many of the attendees have already posted their impressions and photographs from the day, so I will not attempt to beat a dead horse into the ground. However, I will try to put into words the important things that I took away from the conference. And then I will sweeten the deal with a cookie recipe – actually the cookies that I made to bring to as a wee giftie to Mairi for hosting me. Seriously, Mairi, you were awesome and I really do love the ‘eclectic chic’ style of your house! And your wine rack, yummm.

It all started off with a bit of a blogger’s slumber party at Mairi’s house – she generously offered up her lovely home to four of us Wellingtonians (Mrs. Cake, Domestic Executive, @ Down Under). We all talked shop over nibbles and pretty pink rose’, cookbooks and blogging and celebrity chefs and food... I had my phone out and was taking notes on new books that I had to have and new blogs that I had to read.

Saturday morning came around quicker than my not-a-morning-person-everrrr body would have liked, but it was a gorgeous morning and we drove out to The Tasting Shed all aflutter with anticipation. Not many of the bloggers had met other bloggers at that point, so there weren’t any pre-formed groups to try and break into, which is one of my all-time social fears. There’s nothing that makes you feel smaller than a mouse when you walk into a big group of people who all actually know each other and you’re the new one. So the fact that we were all (mostly) new to each other actually made it easier to talk to lots of different people throughout the day, without feeling like I was intruding.
 

Brownies and fruit for breakfast?  Yes please!  Thanks Tasting Shed!


It’s not often that I get to eat such lovely food as was provided by the Tasting Shed, and being newish to the foodie-sphere I was tasting things I had even heard of before. Harissa sauce?! This needs to be in my life now, forever. Pork cheek? So amazing that it was very hard not to scarf it all down myself. I had to send it down the table away from me and my line of sight. I was secretly doing a happy dance inside as each dish came out, the day could have ended at lunch and I would have been happy as a clam.

The one photo I did get of lunch and the harissa sauce that is now my fave!

 The talks given by fellow food bloggers were absolutely fantastic and gave me a lot to think about. Andrea Wong from So D’lish talked about the technical side of blogging, including layouts, which put in me in mind of all those Marketing classes I took in college and trying to figure out what prompts consumers to buy things. So what makes blog readers look at certain parts of a webpage and not others? Time to step out of my writer’s shoes, put on my marketing hat and get to work on the physical appearance of this thing!

Jaco Swart from Rainbow Cooking, a blog about South African cooking in New Zealand and new to me, talked about how to utilise social networks along with your blog. It’s a funny thing for an introvert to try and promote their blog when the whole blog thing really started as a way to say things without using your real name! I started blogging because I really loved the anonymity of it, knowing that the only people that were reading it were my parents and maybe some friends, but now that other people are reading it I sometimes have internal existential conversations with myself. “Why am I doing this?! People who know me are reading this, more than just Mom and Dad, they might be judging me! Wah!!” Going to the conference and meeting lovely people who are most definitely not judging me for what I write or how my photographs look was a great wake-up call, and allowed me to free myself from some debilitating fears. Now I’ll be able to use what Jaco’s talked about and put myself out there.

We got a reality check about writing for different media from Alessandra Zecchini, whose honesty about what it’s like to be writing for yourself versus writing for a client has made me (and a lot of us I think) stop and really think about where we’re going with the whole bloggy thing. She challenged us to write about only our own recipes for a month if we’re thinking of writing a cookbook or for magazines, and seeing how I’ve only conjured up about two of my own originals, I really don’t see myself going down the path of publications. Cue more internal existential debating, as well as the realization that you may think that you came up with something new, but just give it a Google and you’ll find out that brilliant idea has already been thought up by someone else. So now I’m thinking to myself: is this all about coming up with my own recipes, or sharing awesome ones that I’ve come across with other people?

With all this internal strife, good thing there was good wine and conversation to take the edge off. Wine is one thing I do know a decent amount about, having taken a few courses in college and have visited who knows how many vineyards and cellar doors and tried as much wine as possible in the name of research. I love varietals that are not mainstream, so the Cooper’s Creek people had me when we walked through the door and they said “gruner-veltliner”. Hell yes, give me some more! There was also a beautiful non-pinoty pinot noir that I declared I would jump into the vat of, and probably the best sticky wine I have ever tried – a dry late-harvest Chardonnay. The only reason I didn’t buy any right then and there was because I wouldn’t have been able to carry as much as I wanted through the airport. I’m getting it shipped. :)


A happy-drinker snap during the wine tasting at Cooper's Creek, conveniently across the parking lot from the Tasting Shed!

To end the day, Bron Marshall gave us a bit of a primer on food photography, of which she is an absolute pro and I love her work. We didn’t have too much time for the practical application of it beyond some playing with reflectors and diffusers, but even just that little bit was enough to get the juices flowing! I’ve even found myself analysing photographs in the food magazines I read, in the hopes that when I finally do get around to making something photo-worthy I will be able to apply what I’ve learned. And also I just like pretty colours.

How to hold up reflecting cards and direct light to your food - hardware store clamps!

We had dinner at my new happy place – Cook the Books. Cookbooks plus food equals heaven. And their food, oh my, the corn and miso cakes were like little pillows of heaven. It’s really a good thing they weren’t put down in one place, because I would have parked myself next to it and never stopped eating them. Of course I did buy a book – the Tassajara Bread Book, which I am really excited to get stuck into and eventually wean us off of grocery store bread entirely. Is there anything better than fresh homemade bread? I made toast out of some White Mountain Bread (from the Bread Bible, which I borrowed from the library and then copied like, 15 recipes out of) with some of Mairi s marmalade, and good golly miss molly that was a new level of breakfast nirvana. Srsly.

The demo kitchen at Cook the Books and source of heavenly corn and miso pancakes.  Drool!

To top off a fantastic day, Mairi  took the Slumber Party girls out to The Bramble for a cocktail and I’m pretty sure my Lemon & Passionfruit Meringue cocktail was just about the very best liquidy non-chocolate thing I’ve ever had. My new mission in life is to recreate it. Our liquor cabinet assures me we will succeed.

So what have I learned from this experience, other than I need to park myself in front of my blog and tweak the hell out of it, and also maybe get Jonno to learn some HTML (it’s always the men that do those things, isn’t it?)? I’ve learned that it won’t kill me to get completely out of my social comfort zone for a weekend, especially if I get to chat with lovely people who love food as much as I do. I’ve never met a group of more interesting, sweet, generous, and incredibly creative people, and it just inspired me to keep doing what I’m doing – eating, cooking, baking, and photographing everything that goes into my mouth.

So here are the cookies, as promised. They’re from the fantastically wonderful Bakerella. 


You can't resist these, so stop trying.


Dark Chocolate Chip Comfort Cookies

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, slightly softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 packet dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C degrees.
2. In a small bowl, mix flour, cocoa, soda and salt using a wire whisk and set aside.
3. In another bowl, cream butter, sugar and peanut butter until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
5. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture and mix until combined.
6. Stir in dark chocolate chips.
7. Roll cookie dough into 1-1/4 inch balls, or scoop using an melon baller.
8. Place on parchment paper covered baking sheet.  Bake 10 minutes.
9. Cool on rack and try not to burn your mouth on the hot ones.  Luckily they cool fast. 
10. Makes about 30 2-inch cookies.

Social Baking: Cheese Scones & Berry Yoyos

Growing up I remember getting up early on a Saturday just to watch cartoons, and I would sit in front of the TV from 8 or 9am straight on through til noon when the boring adult shows came on, like Masterpiece Theatre.  My favourites were Garfield, the Smurfs, Captain Planet, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Winnie the Pooh.  It pains me something fierce that Hollywood has ruined three out of those five with live action/CGI theatre releases.  Ruined, I say! 

*While researching my childhood, I came across this site, which has a complete listing of all the 80's cartoons and any DVD releases put out, so you can relive those golden Saturday mornings of eating your cereal in front of the tube in your pj's.  I know what I'll be doing next weekend!

I also had the live-action version of Rainbow Brite on beta and I'm pretty sure our beta machine went the way of the dodo due to death-by-over-Rainbow Briting.  God I loved that multi-coloured with the awesome boots.  Who else could pull off saying, "Hey Glumface! Next time there's a rainbow, look up!  You'll feel better!"  I mean for realz, homegirl had it goin on. 

Those boots are to DIE for.

That is the ONLY reason I would ever consider getting up during the single-digit hours on a weekend of my own accord.  I like my sleep and am a champion sleeper-inner, a fact my mother (hi Mom!) still bemoans.  Seriously, she called us this Sunday at 11:15am.  I may have said I was awake, but only awake in the sense that my mind was no longer in deep slumber state.  I was still horizontal, eyes crusty, voice hoarse from screaming at the rugby the night before, husband snoring beside me.  It took a full 10 minutes of poking and prodding for Jonno to wake up, and of course once he was on the phone Mom couldn't resist give him stick for being asleep sooo late on a Sunday morning.  Even from thousands of miles away she still manages to give us a hard time. :) 

So how I was convinced that 10am on a Saturday morning was the perfect time to cash in a Social Cooking voucher is beyond me.  Like so far beyond comprehension that I'm pretty sure some clouds would explode or something if we tried to figure out why I agreed to getting up early on a weekend.  But the promise of a good coffee before our baking session and the fact that we were going to be baking did make up for the early hour. 

*Has that Rainbow Brite picture burnt your retinas yet?  I can't see colours right now...

The Social Cooking kitchens are in a gorgeous spot down on Chaffer's Marina, and right next to Port Cafe, which I am very happy to say serves a lovely mocha.  The format of the class was pretty conducive to really getting into it: first the instructor gives a demo of the steps and then turns you loose to work in pairs on that day's recipes.  Now, while I am happy to be in amongst it all with everyone else, I hate hate hate with a passion getting called up in front of a group to do something, and that was pretty much the first thing that happened that morning.

We were given aprons and name tags.  The instructor asks who among us is a baker and, of course, I got pointed to by my mates.  No pressure there, right?  Heh.  Not unless you're a huge introvert with a seething fear/hatred of being stared at. 

Cue shrinking and attempting to hide behind my mate.  Unfortunately, she spotted my name tag and said, "So Christina, do you want to come up here and cream this butter and sugar?"  How do you say, "No, I'd really rather not coz then people will look at me and I might possibly melt into a puddle on the flow, and that would be really hard to clean up and you don't want that do you?"  So I stood there, creaming butter and sugar, while everyone watched, for like an eternity.  She couldn't move on to something else while I creamed, noooooo, she had to make everyone watch while I finished my task.  I about died.  But then it was over and we got down to the business of making yoyo's, which I had never had before. 

The biscuits themselves are so darn cute, and you could probably get creative on how you do the tops.  One thing that we did learn was that they don't spread, so however much you press them down into a disc, you will be trying to shove double that plus filling into your mouth.  Strategic baking, I tell ya!


Sweet, buttery goodness.

Now, I have to confess I was a little skeptical when I read the recipe before we made them.  "These are sweet biscuits, right?  For dessert kind of thing?  But there's no chocolate!"  I'm not very good at having non-chocolate things for dessert.  But it turns out yoyos are a delightful mouthful of joy, and so easy to throw together.  Look, aren't they pretty?


Berries make everything better!

For the second act, we made "The Best Cheese Scones in NZ".  Should be called "The Best Cheese Scones to Make If You're Really Lazy!" coz they were super easy and only required three ingredients: regular all-purpose flour, shredded cheese, and milk.  Mix, dump, bake, enjoy.  Kind of like in a rugby scrum. 

Scones for the lazy baker!

In all the morning was pretty fun, and we got both recipes done and dusted in about 1 hour 45 minutes.  Which is good, because if it hadn't been fun, I might have had to break some heads.  Imaginary heads though, I'm a nice person!  I don't know that I would have gone to this particular class of theirs if I hadn't been with friends though, as I'm decently competent around the oven and could have put these together if I had been so inclined.  What makes it is that you're baking with friends.  Anyway, on to the recipes:

Yoyos, from Social Cooking

makes about 10 sandwiches (20 biscuits)

Biscuits:

• 175g butter, softened
• 1/4 cup icing sugar
• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/4 custard powder
• a few drops of vanilla extract

Filling:

• 50g butter, softened
• 1/2 cup icing sugar (or 1/4 icing sugar, 1/4 cocoa powder for chocolate)
• 2 tbsp custard powder
• optional: few drops of flavouring
• optional: fresh or frozen berries

1. Biscuits: Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy.  Add vanilla and mix in.
2. Sift flour and custard powder together to break up the lumps, then mix into butter mixture.
3. Roll spoonfulls into a ball with your hands, but don't handle too long or the butter will start to melt.  Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, about 1 inch apart. 
4. Press down into flat discs with a fork or some other implement of distruction.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180C, until just golden and no longer soft.
6. Filling: Beat all ingredients together with a wooden spoon.
7. Once the biscuits are cool, spread filling on half.  Top with a berry or two for added flavour and colour and sandwich with an un-frosted biscuit.  Scrumtious!

The Best Cheese Scones in NZ, from Social Cooking
makes about 8 big honkin' scones

• 2 cups of self-raising flour
• 2 cups of shredded cheese, your choice of flavour
• milk to mix
• Optional ingredients to add: chopped parsley, chives, basil, parika, chopped chillies, spring onions, the list is endless!

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Place flour, cheese, and any optional ingredients you've added into big bowl and mix together.  Form a well in the centre and add a little bit of milk.
3. Mix ingredients together, and add milk as necessary until they are all holding together but not any more.
4. Dump big handful-sized mounds onto a lined baking tray.
5. Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden.  They're so good you don't even need butter!

New year, new......

....Ok, I haven't figured that part out yet.  I turned 28 yesterday, officially the "late 20's", and ten years after I graduated from high school.  Like, really?!  How did ten years escape so damn fast?  And I'm married and live with a boy?!

And I live in New Zealand?!  I've just realized - my kitties are Kiwi!  If kitties had passports, then 3 out of our little family of 4 would have New Zealand passports.  I always thought I would grow up to have little American kitties, fat and happy, but no, Spice and Lucy are "kiwi as, bro".  Maybe that's why they seem to like Jonno better than me.

the missing SpiceGirl - Emo Spice

This is Spice, and she loves Jonno's lap.  As soon as we get home, she trots right up to him and starts her little "Hurry up and sit down on that couch so I can has a nap on your lap" routine - chirping and circling him like a shark until he finally plops down, and she promptly leaps gracefully onto his lap, does one wee doggy circle and settles exactly like this.  And then gives me this Look, lofty and scathing at the same time, firmly reminding me that she is Top Kitteh in our house. 

All the Kiwis in my house are banding together, grrr.  Well, I'll be a Kiwi too...in a few years!  If Immigration get off their bums and finally process my Residency application...  Maybe if I send them some of my baking it will speed up the process?  A little sugar could go a long way!  Here's what I made this past weekend for my birthday:

Oreo-stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Or I should say, Jonno made the Peanutbutter Chocolate Chippies (From Bakerella, although I can't find the recipe on her site, so I'll attach it here) and I made the Oreo-stuffed Chockies (from Amanda @ Amandeleine).  And MMMMMMMM they were damn good.  We had a smorgasbord of sugar set out on our coffee table - cookies, lollies, cocktails, and sugary sappy girlie movies! 

There was even more baking that occurred, but I will share that later because it deserves its own post.  Full disclosure: both recipes were blatantly used straight from their sources, as I have not yet gotten into the whole writing-the-recipes-in-your-own-words thing yet.  I take no credit for the recipes, but I did bake the deliciousness and take the photos posted here.