Chewy (or not) Rum Raisins Chop Chip Cookies

Hello there! It's me again....the proud owner of a brand new oven! :) Finally, TW and I won't have to make garlic fried rice everytime we have some left over. Now we could make cheese baked rice and perhaps some twice baked potatoes as starters then creme brulee for dessert. Oooo my tummy's rumbling :)

The oven is huge for a bench top type (I had a bit of a problem looking for a place to fit it in my small and already packed kitchen) and it comes with 5 functions; stew, fan oven, bake, rotisserie and grill. My my, the stuff that I could churn out of this baby...let's just hope that my old friend, procrastination, won't get the better of me.

Now I was feeling rather 'up to it' yesterday. Why not bake some cookies? I still had some raisins in the fridge and plenty of brown sugar and rum from my previous ice cream recipe. All I need was flour, butter and eggs. 

Here's the full recipe;

• 1 cup dark raisins, soaked overnight with 1/4 cup of rum (I used Captain Morgan)
• 1 cup (about 1 block) of unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup castor sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, no sifting required
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp fine salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups semi sweet choc chips (I used Hershey's)

Follow the steps below and you're well on your way to gorgeousness :)

1. Preheat oven to 175C. 
2. Line baking tray with parchment paper.
3. Cream sugar (brown & castor) and butter till fluffy and light in colour. (I used a hand mixer)
4. Add eggs, one at a time followed by vanilla extract and beat till well mixed.
5. Add flour, salt and baking soda and beat till just moistened.
6. Fold in choc chips and raisins (tip in the rest of the rum too) and let mixture rest for about 10 minutes.
7. Place tablespoonfuls of mixture onto the prepared baking tray, spacing about 2 inches apart. (or else you'll end up with one HUGE cookie)
8. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are brown but centre is still soft.
9. Remove from oven and leave them on the baking tray for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies turned out chewy. If you want them to be crispy, just pop them back into the oven for a few minutes. Either ways, they're absolutely addicitive. 

I found a great article that explains and teaches you on how, with a little bit of tweaking, you can achieve crispy or soft chewy cookies. Read it here.

these are dangerously close

i think i'll use shortening instead of butter next time,

maybe they'll turn out harder and spread less

store them in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks....

but I doubt they'll be around that long!