seriously the best ever triple chocolate chip cookies

with just a tiny little healthy twist... naturally... i ve got to be able to give myself an excuse for indulging in these babies

as autumn was suddenly right on our doorstep, there was no way i could deny my urge to bake these cookies, and chocolate definitely had to be the main ingredient.

i do have a little recipe i always turn to, but this time i wanted a double whammy, chocolate cookie dough AND chocolate chips... ofcourse there s dozens of recipes out there, but this one jumped out at me screaming (not quite Halloween yet, but still, it was screaming) to be tested. whose better then to try out than Ms Nigella Lawson s big cookies.

so that s exactly what i did:

and they came out as she promised, but there was something a little overpowering about them, pure chocolate in the dough, pure chocolate chips (and loads of them) mixed in, you really need a huge glass of cold milk or a good mug of something hot and sweet to counterbalance that.

then i thought i might just want to add a little bit more sweetness, not by adding sugar, but using the bittersweet chocolate only in the dough, and exchanging white and milk chocolate chips for the pure ones, then adding pine-nuts and dried cranberries for the 'health' kick... plus an extra soon-to-be-not-so-secret ingredient...

wow, if i may say so myself, these turned out to be the best ever chocolate chips cookies i d ever made (i probably need to have a go at a few other recipes before i should be saying this, but hey, when a cookie is good, a cookie is good)

here s my recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

125 grams dark chocolate
150 grams plain flour
30 grams cocoa powder, sieved (not the drinking chocolate kind thingy)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
125 grams unsalted butter, softened
125 grams light brown sugar
1 medium sized egg
1 heaped tablespoon full-fat cream cheese (yes, the secret ingredient)
45 grams milk chocolate chips, or a bar cut into little chunks
125 grams white chocolate chips, or a bar cut into little chunks
100 grams dried cranberries
80 grams pine-nuts

METHOD:

1. preheat the oven to 170°C
2. melt the 125 grams of dark chocolate au-bain-Marie
3. mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl
4. cream the butter and sugar in another bowl
5. add the slightly cooled melted chocolate to the creamed butter and sugar, and mix well
6. beat in the egg and the cream cheese
7. mix in the dry ingredients and lastly add the chocolate chips, cranberries and pine-nuts, and mix to distribute all ingredients evenly
8. using an icecream scoop, place equal mounds of the dough on a lined baking sheet. do not flatten the mounds and leave enough space in-between because they will spread a little. i scooped 6 per tray and got 21 cookies out of the one recipe, although Nigella says she gets only 12 cookies; she must have a huge icecream scoop! bake for 17 minutes.
9. once baked, leave to cool slightly and then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely before storing in airtight container, or gobble up one or two immediately

ok... yumm....