Chocolate Chip Cookies with Lotus

These cookies are my new addiction! Who doesn’t love Chocolate Chip Cookies - I like my cookies to be soft, not too sweet and filled with chocolate (I don’t want to take a bite without a piece of chocolate)! This year I decided to go a bit crazy and add a cookie to my cookie - putting pieces of Lotus into my chocolate chip cookies to make them even more special - you can also choose different types of cookies (e.g. Oreos).

I played around quite a bit before figuring out what the best recipe is and sharing it with you - some of the most important steps with this recipe are:

• The butter needs to be soft when you use it - if you know you’ll be making Chocolate Chip Cookies take it out of the fridge a couple of hours earlier and if you’re doing them last minute then heat the butter in a pan.

• Do not overbake the cookies! It may seem like after 12 minutes they are not yet crunchy enough and not fully cooked but once you take them out of the oven they will rest for 5 minutes and this is when they will “finish” cooking and get harder. If you leave them in too much they will become little stones which we don’t want.

• Use a good Vanilla Extract - we like this one. If the vanilla extract is not of good quality it might give your cookies a weird taste - you can also ultimately skip the vanilla extract.

• For the chocolate we prefer to use semisweet chocolate (dark chocolate) which is better for you and for the recipe as it will not add too much milk to the cookies (this happens sometimes if you use milk chocolate)

• You will start with an oval shape when you put them in the oven and they will flatten as they cook (don’t worry)

• You can freeze these cookies for up to a month. Simply go through steps 1 through 6 and then instead of baking the cookies freeze them (do divide them and make smaller balls before freezing them so then you can simply take out as many “balls” as you wish and make your cookies)

Prep Time: 5 Minutes

Cooking Time: 15 Minutes

Ingredients (for 20 Cookies)

• White Sugar - 150g

• Brown Sugar - 200g

• Butter - 200g (room temperature)

• Eggs - 2 Large

• All-purpose Flour - 320g

• Baking Powder - 10g

• Chocolate (you can either use chocolate chips or buy chocolate bars and cut them up. It really doesn’t matter what you use - 200g (or more if you want)

• Vanilla Extract

• Sea Salt - 1/2 teaspoon

• Lotus Cookies - around 10

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to conventional heating at 180°C

2. In a bowl mix together the sugar and the butter which should be quite soft.

3. Add the eggs and vanilla extract. Mix until you get a soft mixture.

4. Add the flour and the baking powder. Mix until the flour is completely merged into a paste.

5. Cut up the chocolate into large chips and add them to the cookie paste (here you might be using chocolate chips which are already cut). Mix until the chips are evenly distributed in the paste.

6. Put a baking paper on a baking tray. With an ice cream scoop (or two tablespoons) scoop paste balls on the baking tray.

7. Take your Lotus cookies and half them or break pieces off - add a piece of Lotus cookie to each chocolate chip cookie.

8. Bake for 12 min and let them rest outside of the oven for 5 minutes

9. You can now enjoy your cookies

   You can freeze the paste for up to a month and enjoy cookies at any time! Freeze them at point 6 and instead of putting them in the oven put them in the freezer. When you want to eat them take them out of the freezer, wait 5 minutes and bake them for 14 min.