Soft Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here are some facts I recently learned:
Fact 1: Watching the biggest loser after eating chocolate chip cookies make me feel better about myself
Fact 2: There's a lot of product placement in biggest loser
Fact 3: These chocolate chip cookies are the best I've ever tasted

Yeah, I'm guessing you can tell I wanted a way to feel less guilty about eating lots of chocolate chip cookies and that, well, I found it. But I have to say, these cookies are worth the guilt. There are so many different types of chocolate chip cookie, these are the soft, chewy kind, like 'soft baked' ones from the store.


They have 3 pretty weird awesome things in them which make them so good:

yeast - weird, I know, I've seen it in a few other cookie recipes before. They give the cookie an extra flavor dimension, not a bread-like, yeasty flavor, just something I can't really describe. You can leave it out if you're too weirded out :(

browned butter- this improves the texture of the dough, and the cookie whilst adding buckets of flavor

gram flour - optional, but I've found it gives the cookie a softer texture. Umm, there is one thing though,  it also makes the dough taste like peas... yeah. For me, it's a good thing as it stops me eating the cookie dough, and I promise that the pea flavor ( :S ) will be gone once your cookies are baked!

Soft Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies 
(makes 40)

3oz  butter
2 oz margarine or shortening
1 cup - 1 tbsp brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup/ karo syrup
1 large egg
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1/4 cup gram flour*
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts/pecans, chopped, toasted

Brown the butter: put the butter in a small sauce pan and cook over a medium-low heat while gently stirring until the mixture begins to foam slightly. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
Cream margarine/shortening with the sugars and syrup. Add the browned butter (with the weird solid brown bits), egg, vanilla and salt and cream until the mixture becomes paler. Fold in the flours, leavening agents, chocolate chips and nuts until just combined. Refrigerate the mixture overnight (or for up to 3 days).

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees C (375 degrees F).
Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto a lined cookie sheet and bake for 6-8 minutes until the edges are just browned but the middles are still soft. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

*If you don't have this/ don't want to use it, just substitute with an equal amount of all purpose flour