Four Ways With Cookie Dough

By MiNDFOOD

Four Ways With Cookie Dough

Four Ways With Cookie Dough. It always pays to have a good cookie dough recipe on hand, that can be made quickly, and make loads to fill the biscuit jar in an instant. This recipe is super simple to put together and can be flavoured with any variety of options, to give something extra to everyday biscuits.

 

Sweet little cakes we call biscuits or cookies, are designed to be leavened, but with minimal gluten development, to keep them from puffing up too much. Using sweetened condensed milk for biscuits, can help make the biscuit chewy or crunchy, whichever is preferred. For more chewy and cakey biscuits, cook the biscuit for the minimum time and make them a little larger. Add extra sweetened condensed milk to make the biscuits spread more and become more crunchy.

This cookie dough can be made ahead of time, wrapped well and store I the fridge, for when ready to cook. Some useful ideas to make better biscuits:

– Keep dough cold. It is just like pastry, all the ingredients need to be at the same cold temperature and kept there until ready to cook. If your dough becomes too soft while mixing, chill for longer. Do let it rest at room temperature before slicing or rolling into a cookies.

– Check the oven temperature is right, by placing a small piece of dough in the oven at the cooking temp set, take it out after 11 minutes, and check for doneness. If your oven is quite hot they can spread and crispen quickly; if the oven is to cold they puff up more and go a little more chewy and denser in the middle.

– A greased tray will stop the biscuits from sticking when baking, however, baking paper is the best to use for biscuits/cookies as they slip slide off so simply. Keep the biscuit tray nice and clean and they will slip off more easily.

– Self-raising flour is good to substitute for biscuits. Plain flour was made for biscuits, but if using self raising, reduce the amount of baking powder by half.

 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Makes: 40 biscuits

250g unsalted butter, at room temp

500g plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons baking soda

150g soft brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla paste extract

1 x 325mls can sweetened condensed milk

150g white chocolate buttons, chopped

150g dark chocolate buttons, chopped

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Cut the butter in small cubes. Place the butter, flour, baking powder and baking soda in a large food processor bowl. Pulse in the machine until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Tip the mix into a large bowl and add the sugar. Stir well to combine, and break down any lumps with fingers.

Add the vanilla extract, and condensed milk and chocolate chips and other chosen flavourings. Use your hands to combine the mix into a large ball of soft dough. Cover and chill for 20 minutes.

Shape the dough into walnut-sized balls and arrange on the baking sheets leaving about 4cm between each biscuit, pressing down lightly with a floured fork to flatten.

Bake in oven for 13-14 minutes until golden. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Keep in an airtight container in a cool place.

 

Variations:

Chocolate chip and almond – Add ½ cup flaked almonds with the chocolate chips.

Blueberry, oats and lemon – Take out the dark chocolate chips, and replace with ¾ cup dried blueberries, ¾ cup jumbo oats, finely grated zest of 1 lemon.

Peanut butter and dark chocolate – Take out the white chocolate chips, and add another 150g of dark chocolate chips along with 1 cup crunchy peanut butter.

Coconut and mango, with coconut icing – Take out the dark chocolate chips, and add ½ cup thread dessicated coconut, ½ cup dried finely diced mango or peach slices. To make coconut icing, mix 2 cups icing sugar with ½ cup coconut cream. Spread over cooled biscuits, and sprinkle with extra coconut threads and diced dried fruit.

Coffee espresso and hazelnuts and dutch cocoa, dark chocolate – Take out the white chocolate and add 2 tablespoons dutch cocoa, 30mls espresso crema (or 2 tablespoons instant coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoons hot water), 1 cup hazelnuts, roughly chopped.

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