Double Chocolate Cookies – Mary Berry’s Baking Bible

I’m going through a Mary Berry phase at the moment. Her Baking bible Mary Berry’s Baking Biblewould be  a great book to give someone who has done a little baking and likes cake but needs more confidence. Every recipe I’ve tried so far has been easy and turned out well. I am trying to use up stores in my under stair cupboard so I can restock more sensibly so whilst I was initially attracted to this recipe by the picture, the ability to use up a can of condensed milk from the cupboard sold it to me.

As long as I have all the ingredients I rarely read through a recipe before I start so I’ve realised one of the things I like in a recipe book is an indication of preparation time as well as cooking time, I’ll try and add it to the recipes I try but it does mean I need to keep an eye on the clock which I didn’t this time. I also like photos that show what the end product should look like hence the addition of photos in the last few posts.

This recipe calls for some cooling time so it would be a good one to mix up at the start of a baking session before the oven goes on. Meant I couldn’t throw them into the oven as another cake was finishing which is what I’d aimed to do. To be fair Mary doesn’t start the recipe with pre-heat the oven which should have been a give away. I’d have liked an indication of how much cooling time.

I left mine cooling too long in the fridge so had to warm the mixture to get it into spoonfuls for on the baking trays. I think my oven was a little too hot as well as the white chocolate buttons browned a little. But these are definitely what I think of as cookies. Some crunch to the outside, a chewy texture to the inside, slightly irregular shape and cracked surface. And very chocolately. These really are best eaten on the day they are made.

Ingredients

• 50g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 200g good quality dark chocolate (minimum 50% cocoa solids)
• 397g can condensed milk
• 225g Self Raising flour
• 65g milk or white chocolate buttons

Instructions

1. Lightly grease 3 baking trays.
2. Break up the chocolate and gently melt it along with the butter in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the condensed milk, then take off the heat to cool.
3. Mix in the flour and chocolate buttons and chill the mixture until firm enough to handle.
4. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.
5. Place large teaspoonfuls of the mixture, spread well apart, on the prepared baking trays.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 mins.  The cookies should still look soft and will glisten.  Don’t over cook them as they soon become very hard.
7. Carefully remove the cookies with a palette knife and cool on a wire rack.

Makes about 35 cookies

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