Chocolate Chip Cookies

Years ago, on a busy Saturday morning in Small World, an American guy grabbed one of these and bit into it. He immediately started screaming ‘OMG these cookies are the best, they’re killer man! Killer, you hear!’ Everyone cracked up laughing at his enthusiasm and, for many years, they were known as the ‘killer cookies’. Bake a few, and find out why….

Makes 12.

Ingredients

125 g (4 ½ oz) butter, softened

100 g (3 ½ oz) golden caster or white caster (superfine) sugar

100 g (3 ½ oz) caster (superfine) sugar

2 small eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ½ teaspoons rum

225 g (8 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour

¼ teaspoon fine salt

²/₃ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

75 g (2 ½ oz) dried coconut, shredded

120 g (4 ¼ oz) chocolate chips (we use a mix of milk, white and dark)

Method

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). With a hand-held mixer, beat the butter, golden caster sugar and white caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, vanilla extract and rum, and beat well. Sift in the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda, and gently mix together. Fold in the grated coconut and chocolate chips.

Scoop up some of the mixture with a spoon and, with your hand, form into a chunky, home-style cookie (not ‘perfect’, like a shop-bought cookie). Line a baking tray with baking paper, arrange the cookies on it, and bake 13 minutes for a nice gooey texture. Cool slightly, until you can easily handle the cookies without them falling apart, and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

You can freeze this mixture: roll the dough into cookie balls, and freeze. Then you can raid the freezer when you want to, and have cookies ready-to-go in no time. Baking time for frozen dough is 17 minutes.