I’ve been craving for Chocolate chip cookies since i got here. Sure, gourmet chocolates are in abundance, pastries and breads but American desserts or at least the generic stuff that we’re used to like brownies, cookies, cupcakes are really hard to come by here. Particularly good ones. I think it was only quite recent that American inspired cafes started popping up in the city, and it seems that the bagel and cupcake wave is here to stay. I guess, I’m just going to have to wait a while until they’ve matured to the quality that i’m accustomed to 😛

I came from work exhausted, napped and woke up to the sun setting at 10pm. Because it was a Friday night, i decided to have a delicious conversation with my new housemate, Kitchen Aid. I got out my leftover salted European butter from the fridge (well here it’s just called butter) an egg , some flour and a bar of Varlhona from the pantry and browsed the web for a chocolate chip cookie recipe that uses salted butter.

I love salted butter, i grew up eating kueh-mueh made with Golden Churn..even after the controversy, it stays in the family like an adopted sibling. Unfortunately, i have not been able to bake with it as much as i want to. My enjoyment for baking with salted butter can only be fulfilled in certain baked goods like banana cakes and pastry dough for my portuguese eggtarts. I tried using them in my brownies but it failed to rise to the occasion. Read somewhere that the salt content may not work well in some recipes. Still, i like to keep some in the house, for those days when i crave for salted butter + Kaya on toast or salted butter on white rice + soy!!!!!!!!!!!

The way they’re sold here in grocery stores is interesting. In Brunei the unsalted butter are always labelled clearly on their packaging, here, it’s the other way around.. although i’m not quite sure since the labels are in French or Dutch or BOTH (like having them labelled in both French and Dutch would make it any easier for a foreigner kan?), but i have an inkling that unsalted butter is just ‘butter’ whilst the salted ones are clearly labelled. I need to get back to you guys on this. I’ve just bought a block without a label.. will let you know if my speculation is on point.

Another thing that confuses me is the fact that i have not once seen Belgian baking chocolate at my local Carrefour. I found some Valrhona ones the other day, but they’re French, not that i’m complaining but i just think it’s a little bit odd.. its either they really dont carry them in normal grocery stores..or it’s my deficiency in the French language.. for all you know they’ve probably been staring at me from a section of the grocery aisles calling out to me in French, “Mademoiselle siti, cest moi!!!! le chocolat pour baking!!! ” and i’ll be like “Ai….kacang”.

I love me some quality baking chocolates and i personally think that the best way to enjoy them are in chunks..be it in brownies or chocolate chip cookie and ice cream. You can’t really appreciate its quality when you’re incorporating them into cake batters. I also prefer using them in all-chocolate baked goods, the ones that are meant to be chocolatey in texture macam mousse kah.. pudding kah..those molten lava cake things kah ganache kah… So anyway, that’s exactly what i did. i chopped them up and folded them into my cookie dough mixture, chucked them in the oven and 7 minutes later i made myself a new group of salty-sweet-chocolatey friends, took pictures of them, tagged them on instagram and happily devoured them with a tall glass of milk.

I adapted his recipe, changed the ratio of caster to brown sugar ever so slightly and they came out wonderful. I didn’t include any nuts in the recipe but it could’ve benefit from a sprinkling of nutmeg and cinnamon. The recipe’s also a good base for other flavoured salted chocolate chip cookies.. an image of matcha cookies with white chocolate chunks just popped up in my head as i’m typing this.

I had left over dough and decided to make some more this morning in two batches using different cooking times – because i don’t have a life.

The one with longer cooking time yielded a crisp textured cookie whilst the ones cooked slightly under stayed soft and gooey. I loved both. ok. i’m going to go talk to myself and follow the political developments of the #LGBT Movement in the Republic of the Kardashians.

Oh Bruce!

Happy weekend.