Milk chocolate pecan toffee cookies

A couple of years ago I heard about Blue Monday.

No, not the very fabulous song by New Order that hit the charts back in the day, but what feels to me like very suspect "research" to pinpoint when "we" are at our psychological low points.

Heh...I guess I was right to be suspect. When I did my own fleeting research, I found this probably-soon-to-be-removed Wikipedia article, claiming it was part of SkyTravel's PR campaign three years ago.

Regardless, the past two weeks proved to be quite trying for a number of people in my real and virtual circles. Broken hearts, work-related stresses, multiple deaths and multiple hosptilisations (for those of you who wish to read the exbf's adventure in emerg, click this. Remember, it's only funny because he's alive). There were days my heart ached when I checked my voicemail, email, replies, direct messages and message via my Twitter account.

I do what I can to help: do this and that to help ease their burden, offer an ear, shoulder or point of view, offer comfort food.

Comfort cookies, to be precise.

Everyone who bakes chocolate chip cookies has at least one recipe in hand. I probably have serveral dozen in my collection, but Anna Olson's chocolate chip cookies is one of the two I return to over and over again. In its original format it produces a reasonable number (24) of delicious, buttery, chewy cookies, which with a minor tweak can turn into a reasonable number (24) of delicious, buttery, crisp cookies.

When comfort and restoration are calle for, sometimes chocolate chips need a little additional help. Thankfully, chopped pecans and toffee bits stepped in to do their part to add extra butteryness and crunch to the chocolaty chewy cookies.

I'm not so egotistical to claim these cookies will make your life easier and solve all your problems. Simply, they just may make you feel better...and isn't that what a good cookie should do?


Chocolate Chip, Toffee and Pecan Cookies
Adapted from Anna Olson's Chocolate Chip Cookies in Sugar

Yield three dozen, depending upon the size of your cookie spoon

280g (2c) all purpose flour
1dspn (2tsp) corn starch
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5tsp salt
170g (0.75c) softened butter
200g (1c) brown sugar
50g (0.25c) sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
135g (1c) milk chocolate chips or buttons
50g (0.5c) chopped pecans
40g (0.33c) toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Line cookie trays with parchment.

Sift together flour, cornstarch, bicarb and salt. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugars until smooth. Mix in vanilla and eggs. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix in the flour mixture in two batches. Scrape down the sides again, before folding in the chocolate, toffee and nuts.

Drop by tablespoonful onto the prepared cookie sheet, slightly pressing the tops. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are golden and the bottoms are slighly brown and easily lift from the tray.

Cool on the tray for a few minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.


cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Bzz Bzz Bzz

Yes, my busy bees are back, buzzing around workasaurus and deadlineadactyl.

I'm hoping the bees will scare them off (nothing more embarassing to the beasts that being all welty from the stingers of the teeny little winged creatures), but alas those horrid pharmacos have developed some sort of gigantic epipen for the equally horrid beasts, so it seems that I'll be busy slaying these dragon-like monsters on my own.

I'll be back in a few days.

In the meanwhile, I'll leave you with the Furs' Pretty In Pink simply because I found out John Hughes, director of some of my favourite 80s movies (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles) died today. For those of you interested in music he used in some of his soundtracks, check out Purebordom's John Hughes Soundtrack Retrospective.



Edit: okay...for whatever reason, the video isn't appearing. Here's the direct link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c08vQ-vUhWI

RIP John Hughes

cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!