Chocolate Chip Cookies

Or biscuits for UK and AUS people. I've made maybe 20 batches of those in the past few months - they are good! Recipe taken from here; metric conversion - from here.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons (2 oz, 57 g) vegetable shortening
8 tablespoons (1 stick, 4 oz, 113 g) unsalted butter, soft but not melted
1 cup (220 g) packed* brown sugar
1/2 cup (100 g) white sugar
1 egg + 1 egg white
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (AUS and UK: vanilla essence)
2 cups + 2 tablespoons (270 g) flour
1/4 teaspoon (1.25 g) baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups (12 oz, 340 g) chocolate chips

* Packed brown sugar is not a type of brown sugar (I don't remember who asked). 'Packed' means you don't just pour it into the cup but tightly press it in, in order to fit as much as you can.

Directions:

Cream shortening and butter together - preferably by hand with a fork. You shouldn't have a problem if the butter is soft enough.
Add brown sugar and white sugar and mix.
Add the egg, egg white and vanilla and mix.
Add flour, baking powder and salt [recipe says to sift flour, baking powder and salt together beforehand but half the time I omit that step].
Fold in chocolate chips.

* At this stage, you can make rolls of dough, cover with plastic wrap and freeze.

Take spoonfuls of dough, or cut circles from the frozen dough, and place on aluminum foil or parchment paper.
Leave some space between them because they expand a little.
This, and most other recipes I've seen, says to bake at 375 F (190 C) for 12 min or until tops are lightly brown. For my oven, tops get brown for 6 min at 350 F (175 C), so be sure to watch them. As with all cookies, rotate them halfway through baking.
Cool on a wire rack.

They remain soft on the outside for about a minute after you take them out of the oven, but do not get fooled into overcooking them! While trying to find the perfect temperature, I overbaked my first two batches and the cookies were crunchy throughout. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I like mine soft and chewy on the inside.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

'Tis the season of sugar-induced coma, so here is a recipe for chocolate chip muffins. I got the recipe from here, and made some adjustments. A few notes: those are American-style, not English muffins. Cups are US standard cups that hold 240 ml of liquid. This recipe makes 12. You will need one 12-cup (or 2 6-cup ones) regular muffin pan, for which the cups measure about 3 inches/7.5 cm in diameter. Metric conversion courtesy of http://allrecipes.com/

Ingredients:

2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
1 tablespoon (10 g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup (240 ml) milk
1/3 cup (80 ml) vegetable oil
3/4 cup (150 g) miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

The main principle of making muffin batter is to mix the wet and the dry ingredients separately, and combine them in the end, mixing with a wooden spoon (no mixer!) just so all the dry ingredients get moistened. Proper muffin batter may be lumpy, but that's OK. Overmixing creates a dense heavy texture, and that is not the purpose here.

In a large bowl sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, beat egg, milk and oil. Stir into dry ingredients until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in chocolate chips.

Grease muffin cups, or line them with paper cups. Fill them about 3/4 full. Bake at 375 F (190 C) for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes and remove to a wire rack to cool completely.