It’s strange to start a post about double chocolate chip cookies by talking about apple pie, but it was the pie that started it all. O and the girls went blackberry-picking this weekend. It’s slightly too early in the season really, but October will be too late (which is when O will return from the States) and he wanted to make some blackberry jam again this year. The jam was not to be (too few blackberries), but they did return from their Expotition with enough fruit for an apple and blackberry pie.

Living in Devon, we have a ready supply of clotted cream and, since we were entertaining relatives, we decided to splash out on some to go with the pie. But I splashed out rather excessively. Once the pie had all been safely tucked away, we were still left with about half of the pot I’d bought of clotted cream.

Now, I’m not sure about the regularity of this, but the girls were clamouring for cookies and I had everything I needed … except butter. I know it’s not the same (weighing in at a fat content of only 55% as opposed to butter’s 81%, among other things), but I remembered using clotted cream in place of butter last year when I made Devon Flats. If it hadn’t been for the clotted cream sitting in fridge, I would probably never have tried this, our very own version of double chocolate chip cookies (based loosely on a recipe for Mocha Truffle cookies that I’d jotted down some time ago in my recipe folder).

All I can say is … yummy!

Oh, before I write out the recipe, I should mention that I made a few flour alterations (is that a surprise?!). I used strong, white bread flour to give a protein content of about 12%. I microwaved 10 oz of this flour until it reached 110 degrees C (cookies are forgiving, after all), then re-hydrated it by shutting it in the oven a few times with a bowl of boiling water. I sieved the flour to remove the lumps before weighing out the 8 oz I needed for the recipe. I can’t say definitively that any of that was absolutely necessary as I haven’t tried this recipe any other way. From past experience however, it gives a more rounded, crunchy-on-the-outside/chewy-in-the-middle result than you get in cookies made with untreated flour.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

4 oz clotted cream
3 1/2 oz Divine milk chocolate
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules
8 oz strong, white bread flour
1 1/2 oz cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 3/4 oz dark brown muscovado sugar
5 1/4 oz castor sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
7 oz chocolate chips

Melt the clotted cream, milk chocolate and coffee granules together in a small saucepan. Pour/scrape into a large mixing bowl and leave to cool.

Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Whisk to mix thoroughly.

Add sugars and eggs to the chocolate/cream mix. Beat to combine.

Add the dry ingredients and stir until incorporated.

Fold in the chocolate chips. The cookie dough will be quite sloppy.

Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes, then drop by the tablespoon onto an ungreased baking tray (I used a silicone liner).

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 180 degrees C in the centre of the oven.

A picture speaks a thousand words.

It’s not a particularly good picture – the light was fading, my camera flash is (still) broken and I didn’t really arrange the cookies very aesthetically. However, it says all I want to say and more …

… the flat, crispy cookies on the right were made with untreated plain flour; the crunchy, chewy cookies on the left were made with the same flour, microwaved (à la kate).