Two Continents, One Recipe, Cookies All Around

So what do you get when you combine two foodie friends, one global book swap, an intriguing new recipe, and the magic of email? About as close to "baking together" as two girls on opposite sides of the world can get.


The only problem becoming firm friends on the internet is how far away they live, most of the time you hardly even notice, except for their strange bed times, email can be just so instantaneous. The time when it hurts is when you would like to catch up, have dinner, meet for a coffee. So what do you do about it? Well you bake together! it is just as much fun (almost) as if they where there (in person) and you both get to taste the end product!

How did this come about?, the lovely literary nut Amy over at BJF decided to host a bookswap, she paired everyone off and I received a book from Nupur at One Hot Stove. You can see the book in the above photo, but you might also notice that the photo shoot was hijacked by one Kiri!, Of course because I was paying attention to/photographing something other than him he had to get right in the middle of it. So you are just going to have to imagine he is a model enticing you with his gorgeous muscles and shiny blue fur!

The Book Nupur so kindly sent me is the New York Cookbook By Molly O'Neil. I have been meaning to post about this and the beautiful handmade postcard and bookmark!!! for so long, and I have been very remiss(so sorry Nupur). The book is awesome btw, I almost feel like I have been to NY and all the deli's an restaurants after reading it! I really wanted to include a recipe from the book with my postso I was emailing FG (Farm Grl) way to late in the Mornite (morning/night) as per usual and I told her about a cookie recipe I was thinking of making, then *SWOOSH, SWOOSH* and a flurry of emails later it was settled. We would both make David "the cookie King" Leidermans Cookies and have a dual bake off that we will post together. (I think FG just wanted an excuse so she wouldn't have to post about Pita Bread anytime Soon!, especially since it might inspire her to make some more!) Do you have anyidea how much fun this has been?

So here is the porn shot :) (*side note like my new/old plate? for $2!!)


Here is the hard core(Feel the beat red raw) sugar photo. One thing that FG and I realised is how different ingredients from the 2 different contients affect recipes, this is completely apart from the impact of the different measuring standards and cultures!

Australia is very well known for it's sugar, even though the recipe specified the use of light brown sugar I never buy it. Why when there is this glorious caramelly stuff! See the sugar pyramid? That is too show you how moist this sugar is with molassasy goodness :)


So how did they turn out? Well I think FG and I(+Casey) are both suffering from major sugar overload headaches! These are some rich cookies, So much butter! So much Sugar! So much Chocolate! I think they are almost worse than the brownies! Definitely sweeter than the chocolate tarts. As far as the butterscotch flavour is concerned... well it doesn't really come through that strongly, even with the Dark Brown sugar. These cookies also seem to be very temperamental, slight differences in the size of the chocolate, shape of the cookies on the sheet and temperature of the oven appear to change the cookies from nice to look at to ugly to where did my cookie crumble too?

So these are delicious cookies and very moreish,if you make these cookies be sure to make them a day earlier as they taste so much better on the second day!

Listed below is the recipe in Metric, if you would like the recipe in what ever measuremens are called in America go see Farmgirl, you should of course now that you have finished reading my post go and read hers!

Thanks so much Farmgirl, I am so glad I met you and this was heaps of fun! Lets do it again soon :)

David "the cookie King" Leidermans Cookies

Delicious Chocolate Chunk Cookies

250 gms butter, softened
250 mls light brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
>750 mls flour
200 gms of bittersweet choc ( I used nestle choc chips)

preheat oven to 350, genourously butter a baking sheet (I am not so sure about this, I tried it and I think there is enough butter in them already!)
Combine butter, brown sugar, salt , vanilla and egg in a bowl, beat to make a smooth batter.
Add flour and choc, stir til no traces of flour remain
Drop batter in dessertspoonfull drops on to the baking sheet
cook til barely brown 6-8 mins (mine took longer)
remove let cool
makes 20