My version of Ile de Pain’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ile de Pain chocolate raisin cookies

In this months Woolworths Taste magazine they are advertising Ile de pain Café food. This reminded my friend Bev that she already had a copy of the book. It was quickly hauled out and we soon found several recipes that we really had to try. One of these was what they call chocolate chip cookies, although the main recipe involves raisins, and the chocolate chips are an alternative. We decided to go the whole hog so to speak and chucked in half raisins, half choc chips. I also think that they taste great with chopped pecan nuts in them too. These biscuits have no raising agent in them, and they only air in them is what you beat into the butter in the beginning. I once had a friend who was allergic to something in baking powder – even self raising flour, so these would be perfect for Rod. Here’s the recipe. Be sure not to over cook them as they become very hard, which can be good, but I like them just a bit on the chewy side.

Ingredients:

200g soft unsalted butter

120g brown sugar

120g soft dark brown sugar ( I used demerara sugar)

¼ teaspoon of salt

2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature

240g cake flour

120g chocolate chips

120g  chopped pecan nuts

120g raisins

220g rolled oats

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

Cream the butter on medium speed in an electric mixer for 3 minutes. It should be smooth and creamy. If using a hand mixer, double the time.

Add the sugars and salt and cream for 2 minutes more.

Add the eggs one by one, creaming for a minute after each addition.

Sift in the flour. Add the raisins, choc chips, oats and pecan nuts. Mix on a low speed for 30 seconds.

Using an ice cream scoop or tablespoon measure, scoop out and shape the dough into balls of 60g/50ml or ¼ cup. Mine were a bit smaller than this more like 40g.

Place 5cm apart on a baking sheet, either on Teflon baking mats or a lightly buttered tray. Make sure that they are spaced well apart as they spread.

Flatten each into disks about 1 cm thick with a moist hand.

Bake at 160°C for 18 – 20 minutes.