Biscuit vs Cookie

I know many people loathe the word 'Cookie' being used in Australia.  I'm just not that uptight.  No hang on, I'm as crazy as the rest of the grammatically anal folk out there, my rules just differ somewhat from the rest of the crowd.

This, is a Cookie 

       

  

Cookies are large, usually sold in a cafe, and if you eat more than one, you've blown the diet or are lucky enough not to have to worry about such trivial issues.  Half your freaking luck!  Have an extra next time you're out, for me.  

So, where does that leave Biscuits?  Biscuits, in my world, are what you buy mostly on the supermarket shelf.

Since I have done a tremendous job of settling that debate, I will now drive home the point with todays effort, White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies (the delectable cookie I used to illustrate my point at the beginning), and also, some Smartie Cookies.

The Recipe

White Chocolate & Macadamia Nut Cookies

Ingredients

190g Butter

190g Cake Margarine (in the butter section, just have a good look for a yellow wrapper)

165g White Sugar

135g Brown Sugar

25ml Vanilla Extract

2 Eggs

260g Plain Flour

320g Self Raising Flour

80g Raw Macadamia Nuts

White Chocolate

White Choc Buttons/Melts

First, a note about the ingredients.  I've been playing around with this recipe a lot, trying to substitute the Cake Margarine out for Butter (cheaper, nicer taste etc), and am so far having success.  I will be altering this recipe in the near future (Cake Margarine has a higher burning temp so am having to adjust a few things along the way) hopefully to eliminate the need for Cake Margarine at all, but, be warned if you are going to do a substitution yourself -you will need to add more flours, drop the temp and cook longer!!!!  You don't want to end up with cookies as large as your face and flat as a tack.  Like many party drugs of the 90's, been there, done that and had to clean up the mess afterwards.

Lets get cookin'.

First, preheat your oven to about 150 (fan forced) and in a large bowl, cream together the butter, margarine and sugars.

 Add the eggs and vanilla, mix until well combined.

After the addition of around half the flours,  switch to mixing/kneading by hand, you'll get a better feel for how the mixture should be, you don't want this too buttery or sticky, nor do you want it too dry.

Next, chop your raw macadamias and the white chocolate.  

Throw in a few white chocolate melts

Then add to the cookie dough and mix through with your hands until evenly distributed through.

Take generous scoops of the mixture and ball it in your hands, feel the consistency and if it leaves a shine on your hands without sticking and clumping, you're ready to go.

 

Take an egg ring and place it on your cookie tray/baking tray.  This will give us the uniform shape and size of the cookie (yay!)

With your ball of dough, press out and fill the egg ring

 

 Make sure that the dough is filled right out to the edges of the ring and all the way to the top, but do not overfill.

Gently lift the ring from the cookie...

 Add some extra Macadamia nuts to the top.

 

Then bake for approximately 15-20 minutes, turning half way.

Remove from the oven, place a couple of white chocolate buttons/melts on top and return to the oven for a further couple of minutes.  

They should be firm to the touch, but not hard, when done.  If they feel spongy, they are undercooked.  You will notice that the biscuits will 'grow' in size, below the tray on the left is uncooked, the tray to the right fully cooked.  The tray size thing is just a fluke, lol.

 

Just to prove I stuff up plenty.  I burned this poor little fella. 

Actually, I blame my oven.  Like some houses have cold spots, my oven has a 'hot spot'.  The very bottom row, back right and in the corner.  My own hell, lol.

If you want to make Smartie Cookies with this dough, simply omit all the white chocolate and macadamia nuts, instead, throw in a packet of chocolate chips and follow the same method for shaping your cookies.

 

 

 

Grab yourself a bag of Smarties, or Chocolate Beanies/other oddly named cheap version of Smarties.  Believe it or not, this is a pretty crucial thing, do not use M&M's.  They just won't do the job. Smarties, these suckers from Coles:-

And a handful cheap rip offs of Smarties that I've tried so far have all worked, but, M&M's just don't.  If you don't believe me, knock yourself out and waste the money, but you'll hate yourself.  Nothing like destroying good chocolate to make you want to slap yourself in the forehead.

Get your smarties, set yourself up with a container and if you have children, be smarter than I was and keep your stash away from the edge of the bench.

 

Start arranging the Smarties on your cookies, working from the outside in.

Once you have your cookie full of smarties, using a flat hand, press down gently on the smarties to anchor them lightly into the dough.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.  I always turn these about  half way through.

I also had a teeny tiny play around with the last bit of the mixture.  Made a whole cookie pop. 

Too tired to add much else of note for tonight.  Until next time...