Right off the bat, I have to admit, baking isn’t my strongest point… but I stand by these ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookies being worth your time. They’re light, chewy, and soft, with added sweetness and crunch from the oats, nuts and chocolate chips. All in all, they’re pretty simple to make, and are very adaptable depending on what you have on hand.
The ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookie isn’t that revolutionary to be fair, but they are exactly what I want on a cosy Friday night. And they are the perfect level of effort to feel like I’ve done something productive and non screen related with my evening, without taking the entire night. Plus at the end of a couple hours you have cookies for the night and the entire weekend. Wins all round.
I make the cookies my favourite way because, I don’t love overly sweet desserts, and I like texture and crunch. The best thing about a cookie though is how customizable they are. You could swap things out for whatever you like, mini marshmallows and chocolate chips, or fudge chips and pecans for a pecan pie cookie.
Ingredients
There are no strange ingredients here, the only one that is potentially slightly unusual is some natural yogurt, and I add that because I like the texture it adds to all bakes, a more springy chewy texture. It’s like a baking failsafe i find, it just seems to make all my baking work out well. But I will say these aren’t standard cookie texture because of it.
The actual cookie dough is vanilla flavoured with some good quality vanilla extract. I also use salted butter in my baking with no additional salt added. Mainly because unsalted butter is not a favourite of mine, so it’s never in the house. I will make the occasional exception, but not often. If you use unsalted butter, then you’ll need to add a generous pinch of fine sea salt.
In terms of the extras I add in, there are some oats for texture and white and milk chocolate chips for some added sweetness and chocolatiness. A cookie without chocolate is always a tiny bit disappointing, no matter how sophisticated they sound. Finally some pecans and almonds for crunch and flavour. None of them are overly strong flavours so the cookies still firmly taste very vanilla-y. I also don’t pack the cookies super full, so they aren’t overwhelmed by the extras.
Other options of things to add include; crushed pretzels if you can’t do nuts for some crunch, mini marshmallows, raisins or dates, fudge chips or peanut butter chips.
Prep and Baking the ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookies
As I said earlier, these aren’t difficult to make. Cream the butter and sugars, make sure you have room temperature butter, then in a separate jug whisk the egg, yogurt and vanilla together. Beat the egg mixture well into the creamed butter and sugar, if it doesn’t quite seem to mix don’t worry, once you add the dry ingredients it will combine completely. I give mine a final whisk to make sure it is all combined. It ends up the texture of soft scoop ice cream and tastes like perfect cookie dough.
Then add all the fun stuff, stir it all through so its evenly distributed. The final frustrating step is to chill the cookie batter, so patience is required! The butter needs to re-solidify before baking so it doesn’t just leak out of the cookies when baking. This also isn’t the firmest of mixes so needs a bit of chill to keep it bound together before you bake. It’s a vital step, so I really wouldn’t advise skipping it. Scoop heaped tablespoons of the mixture onto a lined baking sheet and bake at 200°C for 12 minutes for a crunchier cookie, or 180°C for 14 minutes for a softer texture.
Final Notes
I am a bit hesitant to share these cookies, as they are very much Fern biased, but I hope you like them as much as I do. I suppose that’s the thing about cooking for yourself, you end up always making exactly what you like! Good for me, not so good for anyone else I cook for. Hopefully everyone likes my style of cooking as much as I do.
I’ll rate these cookies as a success though because when I finish one, I think about eating another. Which is unusual for me. They’re not too big and claggy and they aren’t overly rich and sweet. I think these ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink Cookies’ are perfectly balanced.
As much as I love them, I can’t eat twelve cookies in 3 days, so bake as many as you want for the first batch, then you can scoop the rest onto a lined baking sheet and freeze it before baking it. Once the cookie batter is frozen take them off the baking sheet and transfer to a freezer bag. Then you have cookies ready for whenever you fancy. Simply take as many as you want out of the freezer and bake for 15 minutes.
‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookie Recipe
Makes 12 cookies – 25 minutes prep / 30 minutes rest / 12 minutes cooking – Scale & Mixing bowl & Baking sheet
Ingredients:
100g butter
100g caster sugar
25g soft brown sugar
1 egg (make up to 125ml with plain yogurt, approx 75g)
1tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
50g oats
50g choc chips
50g chopped nuts
Method
Preheat oven to 200°C
Cream the butter and sugars.
In separate jug crack the egg and make up to the 125ml mark with plain yogurt. Add the vanilla extract and whisk together.
Beat the egg mixture into the creamed butter and sugar.
Add the flour and baking powder and whisk until smooth.
Stir through the oats, choc chips and nuts until evenly distributed.
Chill the cookie batter in the fridge for at least half an hour, ideally an hour.
Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
Once chilled, scoop heaped tablespoons of batter onto the lined sheet.
Bake for 12-14 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack so that the cookies don’t sweat in their own steam.
Enjoy!!
Leave a Reply