Cookie in Cookie Cookies

Oooooh, I've only been on placement for one day, after a lovely two week holiday, and am already exhausted!  And it's not like I've even started teaching yet!  This is an observation week with some group work thrown in.  The real hard work doesn't start until next week!  I do not know how I will cope.

Anyway, I knew it was going to be a lot of work so I made the most of my holiday and did practically nothing school related.  The fiancé and I did get the registrar booked for my wedding, and talk to hotel about the menu for the wedding breakfast.  We also took some pictures so we can get save the date cards made up and sent out (though that's still in process) and spent an entire week playing lots of Pokémon.  And then last Saturday I took a merry jaunt up to Perth to have lunch and go shopping with my best friend Jess!  Yay!

So, as has become the tradition, I baked her something.  Cookies!  Cookie within cookie cookies!  They are part chocolate chip cookie and part chocolate sugar cookie.  They are of the soft variety of cookie and ever so delicious.

The chocolate chip cookie part is adapted from one of my previous cookie recipes.  I swapped out the icing sugar for golden caster sugar and upped the amount of vanilla used.  The chocolate sugar cookies come from Smitten Kitchen, and are a very popular recipe indeed as they have cropped up on many a food blog.  It's not hard to see why though.  It is a fabulous recipe.  I did substitute in golden caster sugar for the brown sugar and due to only having large UK eggs (which are bigger than large US) meant my dough probably ended up stickier than it should have been, despite me adding a little extra flour.  However, they still turned out really well.  I did make sure to alter the recipe in the write-up to specify a medium egg though.

I was really pleased with the final result.  They looked rather cool and they are very, very yummy!  Jess definitely seems to like them, which is obviously the best thing for me to hear because I made them especially for her. 

Recipe - makes about 30

Chocolate Chip Cookie:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp water
• 75g/2.5oz butter
• 45g/1.5oz golden caster sugar
• 155g/5.5oz plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 60g/2oz chocolate chips

1. Mix the egg yolk, vanilla extract and water together in a jug.
2. In a large bowl, blend together the sugar and butter until it is pale and fluffy.
3. Add the egg mixture to the sugar butter a little at a time, mixing in after each addition.
4. Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder, add the chocolate chips and stir together until just incorporated.  You should end up with a somewhat soft and sticky dough.
5. Roll into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least an hour (mine was in there for about 6 hours).

Chocolate Cookie - adapted from Smitten Kitchen:

• 115g/4oz butter
• 155g/5.5oz golden caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 30g/1oz cocoa powder
• 185g/6.5oz plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

1. Mix the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and cocoa powder together in a bowl until well combined.
2. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the flour to the batter a little at a time and beat in until you end up with a smooth and sticky dough.
4. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least an hour (this one was also chilled for 6 hours when I did it).

Assembly:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. Lightly flour a clean surface and rolling pin. 
3. Remove one of the doughs from the fridge and roll it out to 1cm/0.25inch thick and cut out circles using a 5.5cm/2inch.  Wrap leftover dough back in the clingfilm and put back in the fridge.
4. Remove the other dough and repeat step 3.
5. Now use a 4cm/1.5inch cutter to cut circles out of the centre of each of the bigger circles.  Now you should have a set of rings and a set of circles in both types of dough.
6. Press the centres of one dough inside the rings of the other dough, and vice versa.
7. Place on prepared baking trays, spaced about 2.5cm/1inch apart as they do puff out.
8. Repeat steps 3 to 7 until all the dough is used.
9. Bake for 10-11 minutes, until the edges are firm but the centres are still soft.
10. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.