Lifestyle

My Baking Addiction: Join Me

Like a lot of people, I am a slave to my sweet tooth. I am the person who, at a two-course dinner, will choose dessert instead of a starter. One afternoon a couple of months ago, I fancied some chewy, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and I wanted them straight away. Of course, we had no cookies in the house but an episode of The Great British Bake-Off followed by a quick internet search convinced me to attempt my own. It was surprisingly simple and I now find myself sifting flour several times a week; I never thought I’d be writing that.

If you are a baking virgin or have tried it once and given up, I say try again. Like most things, it will probably take more than one attempt but when you get it right, the results make it well worth the effort. Those first cookies I tried that afternoon ended up being one gigantic baking-tray shaped mess that needed to be cut into squares to eat. It didn’t matter though because I had made it myself and they ended up tasting pretty decent.

Since then, I have developed a mild baking obsession. Yesterday, for example, I baked around 60 cookies in four different varieties (I am expecting the intervention from my family any day now). There is just something so fulfilling about throwing a handful of ingredients into a bowl, mixing it together and chucking it in the oven for a bit until it magically becomes something else delicious.

What is even better is being a little creative once you get to know the basics. I am not talking about trying a bacon and egg sponge cake (although, now that I mention it, no?). But just changing the little things like adding orange essence in a chocolate sponge can make it taste completely different (a bit like a Jaffa cake in case you wondered) or trading chocolate chips for crushed Oreos (so good!).

It’s cheap too. Compare it to buying a pack of those cookies and sponges they bake in-store or in bakeries and you save yourself a heap, not forgetting to mention it tasting better. I would recommend starting the same place I did with the simplest cookies. After all, anything that is just six steps, two of which are turning on the oven and removing them from the oven, can’t be that difficult.

I hope you find that, like me, once your first batch of cookies works or your sponge actually comes away from the tin, you will want to do it again and again. Don’t forget to get friends or family involved too. And, if it doesn’t come out perfect every time, who cares? When it finally does though, then you can get adventurous: how about a four-tier, multi-coloured sponge? Yummy!

In the interest of getting more of you baking, here’s that cookie recipe: enjoy!

  1. Pre-heat oven gas mark 3 (170 degrees)
  2. Beat 100g brown sugar & 100g soft butter until creamy (about 15 seconds)
  3. Add 175g of sifted self-raising flour, 50g of chocolate chips & ½ teaspoon of vanilla essence
  4. Mix in with a wooden spoon
  5. Roll into approx 15 balls in your hands & space evenly on greaseproof paper on a tray. Do not flatten!
  6. Bake for approx. 10 mins or until you like the look of them!
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