A cup of tea & a recipe for almond & white chocolate chip cookies

I like to bake something every week... I grew up around my mum baking... licking the cake batter off the spoon, helping make pastry leaves to decorate her meat and potato pie... One of my earliest memories is being beside my mum in the kitchen, helping her make Sunday dinner. Once becoming a home maker myself, this early passion for cooking really took hold. Now, I'm not about to profess to being the next Nigella Lawson or Martha Stewart, as I often make a complete hash of a recipe... However, I do try my best, in hope that this love of cooking will somehow diffuse into my daughters and, hopefully, then into their daughters...  My mum also said that 'a way to a mans heart is through is stomach,' so I'm hoping that this will give them a head-start on that, too... in many years to come, of course...

Anyhoo, my eldest daughter loves cookies (please don't berate me for letting her eat this sugary treat), and so, to indulge her,  once the weather turns cooler, I make cookies most weekends... I try a variety of combinations... sometimes good, sometimes bad...

This week, I tried vanilla almond milk for the first time, and, I have to say, it was quite delicious. With this in mind, I decided to make an almond white chocolate chip cookie.

Don't you just want to eat raw cookie dough? 

Just over 10 minutes later and they look like this!

I love them, but then again, I have an insatiable sweet tooth.. The hubby is the better judge and he's just had his second, so maybe I'm onto something... I've included the recipe below, just in case you want to give them a try...

Almond White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

! ¼ Cups of all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup of butter or margarine (1 stick) softened

½ cup of brown sugar

¼ cup of granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon almond essence

 1½ cup of white chocolate chips

½ cup of chopped almonds

Method

1.   Preheat the oven to 375F. In a small bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt.

2.   In a mixing bowl, add the brown sugar, granulated sugar and softened butter. With the mixer on a medium setting, beat, until light and fluffy.

3.   Add the egg and almond essence to the butter and sugars, and beat until well combined.

4.   Reduce the mixer to a low speed and beat in the flour, until just blended.

5.   With a wooden spoon, stir in the white chocolate chips and chopped almonds.

6.   Drop the dough by well-rounded teaspoons, approx 2 inches apart, on two ungreased cookie sheets. I like to make these cookies pretty big, so that they’re nice and gooey in the middle, so the key is to putting a good sized teaspoon of dough on your cookie sheet!

7.    Pop the cookies in the oven and bake until golden around the edges… between 10 and 12 minutes. I like my cookies a little soft, so I usually start checking them at around 10 minutes (depending on the size of the cookie).

8.   Once baked, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack, using a wide spatula. I can’t resist these cookies so I usually have one with a cup of tea while the chips are still gooey… Mmmmmm… enjoy!