Chocolate Chip Cookies ( when you don’t have chocolate chips)

Staying home, drawing, doing schoolwork, spying, creating crafts— they all require energy. And what better way to get some energy than enjoying a fresh hot cookie with your family and maybe a neighbor.

Today, we will,make some easy chocolate chip cookies, and we will actually use something from the toolbox to do so. Unless you have a nice fresh stash of chocolate chips, you will need to use a hammer to crush some ordinary chocoate bars for your chips. These chocolate bars are easily found at a little market— you don’t need a mall and you don’t need to go far to find them. Pounding chocolate with a hammer is fun and can be a good way to use up some of that pent-up energy.

I assembled all the ingredients, but I forgot the two eggs. Don’t forget them because they hold the cookies together!

First, you need about 220 grams of butter, which is about a cup. It needs to be soft but not runny, so either microwave it a few seconds or leave it on the counter while you finish some homework and it should be ready to use!

Put the butter in a deep bowl and add 200 gr ( about one cup) of brown sugar and a half cup ( about 100 gr) of white sugar. Stir them up.

before stirring, or as pastry cooks call it, « creaming »

stirring the butter and sugar ( creaming it)

and when the dough is consistent, add two eggs. Mix them in well

Break them , of course. I have to hold the camera as I hold eggs…

Then , once mixed together, you will pile the dry ingredients on top of the wet ones, then mix together. You need two cups ( 240 gr) of flour, and you will add a tiny bit of baking powder ( see my palm) and a tiny bit of salt ( see photo)…

baking powder

Salt ( i just about dropped the camera, but the salt fell in so I could not redo the shot

now you must stir it together really well, about two or three minutes.

Now the fun part. Open two squares of bitter chocolate and put them in a plastic ziplok bag. Close it well. Then take a hammer and pound the bag gently ( you don’t want to break the plastic) until the two bars have been pulverized into lots of little chocolate pieces. You might want to put a wooden cutting board underneath the bag, as it is quieter. ( Your neighbors might wonder what you are doing!)

unwrap the bars and place in a ziplock and seal tightly

Pound pound pound!

…until you have this,…

mix the chocolate bits into your dough and press it all into a long flat pan ( 15 inches by 10 inches or 30 X 40 cm)

You will have to flour your fingers as you spress the dough evenly into the pan

Voilà!

Cut them , serve them, give some to the neighbors, and save some to eat while you are watching that movie tonight!