Pirates of the Kitchen: Cookies tell no Tale

Hello people reading my blog on Blogger. My name is Sarah, and today, while I'm being crushed by all my assignments, I randomly decided to give away my quite decent, easy cookie recipe.

I don't know about you, but when I am stressed, I like to take my time to cook and release a bit of the pressure. And god knows I am having my fair share of stress right now. I am stuck between assignments, my dissertation ( the pinnacle of my 6 years of studying) and desperately trying to find a job to be able to pay off my student loan. So, yesterday, out of the blue, in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation, I decided to finally bake these hazelnut, oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies I've been wanting to make for a week. I thought this could make a nice snack to sneak in the cinema to watch the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean or to watch all the previous ones in a row, at home.

Forgot to take a proper picture, so, you'll have a snap to look at.

The recipe you will find below is the basis of all my cookie creations. I took a recipe found on the AllRecipe website and as usual, adapted it to my taste. I will tell you the same thing I did for the yule log: do with what you have, let the creativity flow, and most importantly, experiment. The measurements below are an indicator. Only know that I sometimes put the ingredients together at a guess. It does not need to be precise to the gram or the minute.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda/powder
• 1/2 tsp of salt (if you do not use salted butter)
• 3/4 cup of salted or unsalted butter (this is where I am not always precise)
• 2/3 cup of sugar
• 1 tbsp of vanilla extract (same as for butter)
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon
• Chocolate chips (i prefer dark chocolate but you do you)

Amongst the ingredients I have added in the past:

• ground nuts
• hazelnuts
• oatmeal
• smarties (the color goes away sometimes :()

As I previously said, anything you want to try is a good idea (until it turns out bad, like that time i tried to add maple syrup and ended up with what got named an "omelette-cookie" x'D).

Directions

1.  Preheat the oven to 175°C. Cut your parchment paper/baking sheet according to the size of your baking tray(s).
2. Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda/powder, salt (if you need it) and cinnamon.
3.  Add in the eggs, the vanilla extract and the melted butter.
4.  Finally add all your add-on ingredients.
5.  Take about a tbsp worth of batter, form a small ball in your hand and flatten that ball on the sheet. Try to leave a bit of space between each cookie, so while cooking they don't stick together and you end up with a giant cookie. Not that it's a bad thing, giant cookie --> Good
6. On the recipe, it is recommended to bake for 15 to 17 min. However, having moved around a bit, I can tell you that no oven is the same. So, maybe leave them in the oven for 15 min but keep a close eye on them. It also depends on how you like your cookies. I personally like them crunchy, but if you like them softer, then you might want to take them out of the oven a bit earlier. They should look "lightly toasted". Anyways, just don't let them burn aka turn dark brown or plain black.

This is the end of this article/recipe. If you have any questions about the steps or ingredients, do not hesitate to make use of the comment section. I'd be happy to help. And please, do share pictures of your creations. 

See you next time :)