Almond and Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

W00p w00p! I have started baking again XD. And off I start with something simple. Shortbread cookies!

Well, this is a slight fuse between shortbread and normal cookies, whereby I just added an egg yolk to the ingredient so that it doesn't crumble too easily and it gives a nice brown texture. Why Almond and Chocolate chip? Well, I bought a packet of shortbread cookies of similar flavour from America and it had an acquired taste in which I half didn't fancy and half did on the other hand. So, I thought I tried baking them myself to see whether it might taste a tad better.

Anyway, to start of with things, shortbread cookies follow a very simple ingredient principle ratio (thanks to joy of baking):

• 2 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup of unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• salt and vanilla essence to taste

And you can add anything to it such as nuts, chocolate chips all to suit! And with a cookie recipe, check out my previous post on the ingredients. The only difference between the two is that cookies add egg to their recipe.

But with my Almond and Dark Chocolate Chip cookies, I've modified a few bits to suit my taste...

Eat me! eat me!

And it turned out just what I wanted, not too dry like biscuits, nor not too crumbly like shortbread :). And what's more, it doesn't have preservatives! It does make such a HuGe difference.

Makes about 21 x 2 inch round cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup of unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup of icing sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp of vanilla essence
• 1/4 tsp salt
• About 20 pieces of Almonds chopped to small bits
• 1 1/2 tbsp of dark chocolate chips chopped into smaller bits too

Method

1. In a large bowl, sift the plain flour and icing sugar together. This help avoid clumps when mixing later on.
2. Add butter and egg yolk to the batter.
3. Add vanilla essence and salt.
4. With your hands (yes, I used my hands!) mix the batter together. Give it a good mix and press the dough together.
5. Add chopped Almonds and chocolate chip to the batter and mix for another 5 minutes just to incorporate them.
6. Place dough in gladwrap and refrigerate for an hour
7. Preheat oven to 170degC, and line an aluminium foil on a flat tray with grease.
8. Take about 1-1 1/2 tbsp of dough and rub it into a ball. Line each dough 'ball' on the tray, with a distance of about 2.5" apart.
9. After lining them up, use your finger or a flat piece of item and press the dough flat until about 1/4 " thick.
10. Place them in the oven for about 10-12 minutes. Take the tray out and flip them over and place them back for another 3 minutes.