Cookies are the first things I learned to bake. I had this batter-stained cookies recipe book which had my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe that I turned to for years. I really need to find that recipe book again! Anyhoo, last night, I wanted to bake cookies and I wanted to bake lots of cookies, so I took Sorted Food’s basic 1-2-3 cookie recipe and added my own flavours. That is 1 part sugar, 2 parts fats, and 3 parts flour. The beauty with this recipe is that you can use anything you want, as long as the proportions are right. You can use white sugar, brown sugar, honey or a mix, put in butter, coconut oil, or peanut butter, white, flour, or even ground almond, this recipe is only limited by your imagination.

I went into a baking frenzy last night and did 4 different types of cookies – orange & cranberry, oats & chocolate chips, lychee & dried longan, and peanut butter with peanut butter chips & chocolate chips. I was led to believe that these are pretty good and not too sweet. I brought a big box of them to the office and by tea time, 80% of it was gone, so I take that as a positive sign 😉

Orange & Cranberry
(white sugar, unsalted butter and all-purpose flour with 1 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt)

Extras
– Zest of 1 orange and juice of half an orange
– Drop of vanilla extract
– 100g cranberries

Oats & Chocolate Chips

(1/2 brown sugar, 1/2 white sugar, unsalted butter, self-raising flour – saves the hassle of adding in baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt)

Extras
– 1 egg (to add extra moisture as the oats will soak it up)
– 50g porridge oats (couldn’t really taste the oats, so it’s possible to add double the amount of oats)
– 100g chocolate chips
– 1 tsp vanilla extract

Lychee & dried longans
(white sugar, unsalted butter and self-raising flour and 1/2 tsp salt)

Extras
– 1 tsp lychee essence (if anyone knows how I can get real lychee extract, let me know)
– 50g diced dried longan

Peanut Butter with Peanut Butter Chips & Chocolate Chips
(1/2 part brown sugar, 1/2 part white sugar, 1 part unsalted butter, 1 part peanut butter, self-raising flour and 1/2 tsp salt)

Extras
– 50g peanut butter chips
– 75g chocolate chips
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 50g coconut oil (I cheated with this as the mixture turned all crumbly and won’t stick together, so I added oil. If your mixture comes together into a cookie dough, then skip the oil)

Method

– Cream sugar and fats until nice and creamy (if you’re purely using oil, then just mix till well combined)

– Add in the extra ingredients

– Mix in flour, baking powder and salt

– You can choose to roll the dough into a sausage, put it in a fridge for an hour or so, then take it out and slice into discs or roll into balls immediately and flatten them to get the classic round cookie shape

– Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree celcius and bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly brown