Perfect Choc Chip Cookies

At lunch time today I slipped on the biggest darkest pair of sunglasses and wandered down to Black Pearl Epicure to stock up on pantry essentials. This means purchasing fine Valrhona cocoa powder, Callebaut choc chips and dark chocolate vermicelli (for fairy bread of course. It's the business). Valrhona and Callebaut will always be my pantry essentials of choice as if you are going to make something with chocolate, you need to use the best.

Valrhona is a French company and is the only chocolatier to produce chocolate from a single variety of bean from a sole harvest. I tend to favour their cocoa powder as it has greater depth of colour than Callebaut. However Callebaut hasn't become the largest chocolate manufacturer in the world by being lacklustre. Callebaut specialises in Belgian chocolate for baking and leaves a lovely full bodied feeling in the mouth. I really like a 70% dark chocolate for eating as I feel 85% is a touch too bitter for the palette. Hold that thought as it will be a lovely segway into my next baking adventure. The quest for perfect Choc Chip Cookies!

I've been invited to a morning tea at work tomorrow so I decided to whip up something quick and settled on Choc Chip Cookies. My Mother has always been a fan of crunchy style cookies, whereas I love a softer texture as it works in harmony with a glass of milk and you're less likely to be caught out by work mates when you're snacking. For those people who follow my preference, I think I've found the perfect recipe on Taste.com.au and it's dead easy. You start by beating all your wet ingredients until they become creamy and then fold in your dry items. You then get the most beautiful dough.

This dough is extremely pliant and it's a satisfying process forming lovely petite domes across a cookie sheet.

After 12 minutes in the oven you're left with light, crisp on the outside and moist on the inside cookies. If you have followed my directions and used the best chocolate you can afford, you should have the most perfect choc chip cookies possible. You'll never want to buy a packet from the supermarket again.