A nerve-wracking day today, as we had an enormous photo delivered for our apartment. Nerve-wracking because we had several last-minute doubts of the so-silly-I-can’t-believe-we-didn’t-check-this sort (“It is going to fit through the front door, right?”) and also because the genius architect of our building didn’t see fit to put in a cargo elevator so it had to be walked up forty-four floors.
So, ok, we weren’t the ones doing the carrying (thank-you saints in removal guy form Leo and co) but let me tell you there was a lot of nervous eating going on in this house today. If the Hitchcockian view down to ground level wasn’t enough to make one dizzy with fear, the photo’s really heavy – like 200lbs. And it’s so brittle that one knock on a corner would put a big crack in it, or worse. Also, our shipper didn’t see fit to put any kind of wrapping or padding around it, apart from a flimsy bit of cardboard.
Hence – I baked. And ate. And baked some more. And licked all the bowls. Well, what else?
These cookies are what the guys got when they reached us at the top, three and a half hours later, all of them intact, uninjured and with a perfect, pristine photo. Amazing. (Clearly, there was cash involved too but I like to think that they were primarily motivated by the tantalizing smells of these cookies baking, drifting down the stairs…)
Brazil nut and chocolate cookies
Makes 30ish. Adapted from Dan Lepard’s recipe in the Guardian.
- 125g soft unsalted butter
- 225g sugar (I used white, but brown is suggested in the original recipe)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 25g cocoa
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 large egg
- 175g plain (AP) flour
- 200g chocolate (I used Lindt Excellence 85%), very roughly chopped
- 150g brazil nuts in large chunks
Preheat the oven to 180˚C and line two baking sheets with parchment or non-stick paper.
When the oven is at temperature, beat the butter with the sugar and vanilla extract until pale. Beat in the egg too. Now add flour, bicarb and cocoa and make sure it’s combined well. Stir in the chocolate and nuts too.
(At this point, the mixture can be chilled until you need it, or frozen for future cookie emergencies.)
Roll golf ball sized chunks of the mixture between your palms and set out these spheres on the prepared baking trays, leaving quite a bit of room (5 cm or so) to allow for spreading. Bake one tray at a time for about 11 minutes, removing the cookies to a wire rack with a spatula – mine made enough for 4 rounds of cooking, making sure to alternate the trays so as not to put raw cookies on a hot tray.
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