Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies

So last week there was a knock at the door mid afternoon.  The fiancé goes to answer it and comes back with a box addressed to me.  Me getting parcels is not strange.  I do a lot of my shopping online.  However I hadn't ordered anything recently, and certainly not something that warranted a box of this size or shape.  Confused but curious I opened it.  Turns out my lovely sister had sent me and the fiancé an Easter gift in the form of a box full of different Lindor truffles, which was quite wonderful.  However, this got me wanting to send something back to her but since I'm trying to be more careful with my money I didn't really want to buy expensive Easter chocolate.  I did however have a cupboard full of baking ingredients and we had recently discussed biscuits on our last Skype chat.  But if I'm sending her biscuits then I obviously have to send biscuits to my brothers and Dad and his partner too.  Otherwise it wouldn't be fair.  So I spent all of Tuesday evening baking four different types of biscuits.  My sister had mentioned Vienesse Fingers in our chat, so I mad her some of those though I piped them into egg shapes.  For my Dad and his partner, I made orange shortbread covered in chocolate.

My two brothers though...I wasn't really sure about them.  The elder eats pretty much anything and in the end I settled on a chocolate biscuit (which I will post soon) but the younger is picky.  Ridiculously so.  Even about sweet things.  He doesn't like ice cream or cake or anything like that.  Did he even like biscuits?  It was a while before I remembered that he had mentioned there was one type of biscuit he likes: Maryland Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They are rather scrumptious cookies.  There has been many an occasion where I have eaten a whole pack of them in one sitting without realising.  So I went looking for a copy-cat recipe, which found one.  Or at least one that claimed to be one.  I figured it was worth a shot.

Well, the final result didn't taste like Maryland Cookies.  They were still nice though.  My honest analysis of the taste is that they are like gingerbread but without the ginger.  The fiancé agrees with this.  I think it's the golden syrup in the recipe.  You can taste it.  They are not a particularly crunchy biscuit either.  I'm glad I flattened them before baking because otherwise they wouldn't have been flat and would have been even softer.  Not that they were that soft.  Just not as crunchy and crumbly as I would have liked.  We enjoyed them though.  Quite a lovely biscuit.  And no eggs in this one either.

Recipe - adapted from Allrecipes
Makes about 30

• 165g/6oz vegetable shortening or margarine (not butter, I used Stork)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 75g/3oz caster sugar
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 2 tsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 260g/9oz plain flour
• 1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g/3.5oz milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. In a large bowl mix the shortening/margarine with the salt and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Add in the golden syrup, milk and vanilla extract and mix in.
4. Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and chocolate chips and mix until just combined.
5. Shape teaspoonfuls of mixture into balls and then flatten and place on the trays.
6. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the edges of the biscuits start to turn golden.
7. Remove and let sit on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.