‘Make you feel good’ double chocolate and date cookies
I get easily obsessed with food. At the moment I have a fixation on dates. Whether it’s combining them with chocolate in brownies or bananas in banana bread, but I often find myself just standing in the kitchen eating them straight out of the bag.
I’ve held an obsession with a certain cookie though ever since I found them. I’ve had to put restrictions on how often I bake them, they disappear far too quickly. It’s the cookie that is perfect for me, crisp but not too crisp on the outside, the middle soft with that almost undercooked squidginess and chocolate, lots of chocolate.
I normally add chocolate in chunks to these cookies. Just a bar, usually milk but sometimes dark, bashed with a rolling pin and thrown in. This time though I seemed to have committed the terrible sin of not having quite enough in the house and had to use chips instead. It’s no major problem, chocolate is always welcome in any form, but part of the joy of these cookies is biting down on a firm chunk amid the softness of the cookie.
On a day that was full of rain, an extremely hard work toddler and a worry that kept creeping its way into my mind, I needed something that I knew would lift my spirits. These cookies do that. They’re make you feel good cookies. I caught sight of the bag of dates, hastily chopped some up and threw them into the mix. It was never going to be a bad thing.
I’ve added nuts before now and dried cranberries (rather a lot of them!) got a turn around Christmas time. Without any addition these are a fantastic double chocolate chunk cookie in themselves but they’re happy to share the spotlight. The dates worked, adding a sweet chewiness.
Five minutes with one of these and a glass of cold milk gave me the boost I needed to go back into battle with the stubborn strong willed toddler. I didn’t win but I felt better. The power of the cookie.
Chocolate and Date cookies
Makes around 20 – yes, it’s a lot but I find that people have a sixth sense of when these are in the tin.
85g butter, softened
175g light brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
125g dark chocolate, melted and left to cool for a couple of minutes
200g chocolate, dark or milk, bashed into chunks with a rolling pin. Or chocolate chips
150g pitted dates, chopped in half or into 3 if they’re large.
125g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
25g cocoa powder
Preheat the oven to 180c fan and line two baking trays. You may need to bake these in two batches if your trays aren’t particularly large.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and stir in the melted chocolate. Add the dates and chocolate chunks and mix.
Fold in the flour, bicarb and cocoa. The mixture will be relatively stiff.
Drop spoonfuls onto the baking trays. The size of your cookie will depend on the size of spoon you use. Leave gaps between the spoonfuls, they will spread.
Bake for 10 minutes. They will still be very soft in the middle so take out and leave to cool on the trays for several minutes. Once they have firmed up, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Serve with a glass of milk.
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