Chips ahoy
How do we find favourite recipes these days? There are, of course, books and magazines for inspiration, and newspapers, but so much of our world is now online. For me, inspiration is often found in the images that flit by while scrolling through this or that social media feed. My feeds are littered with cats, gardens, sheep and food. It’s often a startling view into what makes me smile and how algorithms work. But it is these images that can sometimes lead to treasure.
I love the idea of a chocolate chip cookie. However, they are almost always disappointing. When I google “best ever chocolate chip cookie recipe”, all the images look disappointing. If I am ever scratching around in a late-night service station or a kiosk at a hospital, the nasty cellophane wrapped cookies always catch my eye. If I drop some coin on them, that coin is wasted, as they are always disappointing. I went through a phase of making some quite nice ones with the addition of thyme and salt, but they too have left me cold when I have revisited them in the past year.
Recently, flashing by on my Facebook feed was a picture of a biscuit that looked delicious. I stopped, scrolled backwards and looked at it more closely. It was a chocolate chip biscuit, but it looked far more delicious than usual. On closer inspection I realised there was wholemeal flour, oats and salt involved. So I made it. The result rocketed past my expectations and this has now become my “best ever” chocolate chip cookie recipe. The oats, the salt, the wholemeal flour, the raw sugar all combine to make an excellent texture. The amount of chocolate chips is generous, but not absurdly so.
The recipe comes directly from the pages of a well-known American food blogger. Deb Perelman’s “Smitten Kitchen” posts often make me stop to look. Anything I have cooked of hers has worked tremendously well. I reached out to Deb to see if she minded spreading the word on this wonderful recipe, but I am yet to hear back. She does, however, concede on her contact page that her life goes through incredibly busy patches and her inbox can bulge a little with unanswered questions. Sounds way too familiar.