More information: Buy The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook | Try Alternative Recipe from Lemon Drop Foodie

Happy New Year everyone! As with any other year, the last week of December or the first week of January is usually the time when most people start thinking of and writing down their new year’s resolutions.

For me, one of my (many) resolutions this year is to improve on my baking skills (I’d say I’m in between beginner to intermediate). I’m already eyeing on some potential classes to attend this year and I have set myself up for a year-long baking challenge: to bake one recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook each week.

So for the first week of the year, I’m trying out the Hummingbird Bakery’s Chocolate Chip recipe. I chose this because it is one of the easier ones to do and I need a confidence boost.

Chocolate Chip cookies are said to have been invented by “accident” in the 1930s by Ruth Walker who used to run the Toll House restaurant in Massachusetts. Although this lore was disputed by a food writer who claimed that the new creation was intentional. In any case, we are all grateful that Ruth Walker invented it anyhow. The first ever recipe for Chocolate Chip cookies can be found in Ruth Walker’s 1938 cookbook “Tried and True.”

Ok, so back to Hummingbird’s Chocolate Chip cookies. For legal reasons, I don’t think I can share the exact recipe for you here but there’s a link to Amazon UK at the top of this page for you to buy the book. There is also a link to an alternative recipe from a fellow blogger, who gives a variation of the recipe from the Hummingbird cookbook. (Disclaimer: I haven’t tried this alternative recipe but it looks close enough!).

I initially intended to follow the Hummingbird’s recipe down to the T but realized I didn’t have all the same ingredients and also I decided to do a “low sugar” version. Hence, below is my altered version of the Chocolate Chip cookie recipe:

Ingredients

225 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
350 grams natural brown sugar replacement (Erythirol)
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoons vanilla essence
400 grams plain flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
200 g Hershey’s milk chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 155 deg celsius
2. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl. Keep aside
3. Cream butter and brown sugar replacement with an electric whisk
4. Add eggs, one at a time into the creamed butter and sugar
5. Mix in vanilla essence
6. Mix in the flour mixture until soft dough is formed
7. Mix in the chocolate chips
8. Bake for 10 minutes

My verdict: In terms of looks, the cookies turned out looking great and the smell, heavenly! In terms of taste, I think it’s just nice! The texture is soft in the middle which is expected. Although, it is a touch too sweet. And for some people, like my younger sister who has a low sweetness tolerance level, this will be too sweet to eat. Hence, personally, I would make some adjustments.

Firstly, I would reduce the sugar next time I make this. For those of you who have never used Erythirol sugar before, it’s a sugar alternative that is made from stevia and has almost zero calorie (in this case I used the NKDLiving brand which claims only 1 calorie per teaspoon). Erythirol is supposed to be less sweet than sugar (i.e. about 60 – 80% as sweet) but it seems like further reduction is required for this recipe.

Another thing I would do the next time is to reduce the chocolate chips in the recipe by about half. This will definitely help manage the sweetness. 200g is maybe a bit too generous. Note that the original recipe calls for dark chocolate so that probably made the difference too. Milk chocolate is generally sweeter than dark, and dark chocolate would have given it a more bitter tone which would have balanced out the sweetness.

One mistake I made was not creaming the sugar and butter properly. My cookies ended up gritty! Hence, people, make sure you cream the two ingredients at least 2 – 3 minutes at medium speed. Also, make sure you have your butter at room temperature. I cheated by microwaving it straight from the fridge hence part of it was melted and greasy.

“No matter how bad your day is, when you start talking about cookies or cakes or pies, or you bring someone cookies, there’s just not bad news. The worst news is, ‘Hey, there’s sugar in that.”

Christina Tosi

Well, they say practice makes perfect so I will try to do better next time.

If you plan to try this out (with your own adjustments), good luck!