Simple Cookie Recipe

This cookie recipe is very simple and quick, and the cookies are good.

Ingredients

275 g of flour (I use ’00’ but normal all-purpose flour should do fine)
125 g of caster sugar
1 egg
75 g of cold butter
1 dl of vegetable oil (I use sunflower)
maple syrup
50 g of chopped bitter chocolate

The list can be varied in many ways. Add orange zest with the chocolate; replace the chocolate with finely chopped nuts or hazelnuts; or with a spoonful of cinnamon; or just leave out the chocolate all together.

If you want more wholesome, less sweet cookies, replace 50 g of sugar with the same about of whole flour.

The cookies can be decorated with glazing afterwards.

Procedure

Photo of the cookie ingredients - flour, sugar, syrup, vegetable oil, an egg, butter and chocolate

These are all the ingredients: flour, maple syrup, sugar, vegetable oil, an egg, butter and chocolate.

Photo of flour and butter in a food processor

Mix the cold butter and the flour in a food processor. Use the knife insert at high speed, not the dough hook.

Afterwards the butter should be completely mixed with the flour, with no visible lumps.

Photo of an egg and sugar added to the mixture in the food processor

Add sugar and the egg and mix at slow speed for a short while until the mixture is homogenous.

Photo of the mixture in the food processor with chocolate added.

Add the chopped chocolate bits and mix at slow speed just to blend the ingredients.

Photo of the cookie dough before adding the final bit of syrup.

While blending in the food processor, pour in the vegetable oil slowly. The dough should start sticking together and form lumps.

Adjust the consistency of the dough with a little bit of maple syrup at a time, until the dough starts sticking more together.

It should remain somewhat granular in the food processor and not stick to the sides of the machine.

Photo of the cookie dough rolls ready to go into the fridge

The dough has to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.

I form the dough into two ‘sausages’ which I wrap in plastic foil. That’s because I lazy

Photo of the cookie dough roll being cut into slices

Cut the dough into slices with a sharp knife. The cookies will be less fancy looking but the taste is the same, and it is much easier.

To make sure the dough is hard enough for slicing, I either leave it overnight in the fridge, or put it in the freezer for half an hour.

This is how the sliced cookies look before baking. They’re not exactly round because the dough ‘sausage’ flattens a bit in the fridge.

I don’t mind, because I’m lazy.

Photo of how the cookies look straight out of the oven.

I have a combo oven, so I bake the cookies about 15 minutes at 170ºC ventilated with 350W microwaves. Without the microwaves baking time will be longer.

The cookies shouldn’t become too hard in the oven, as they harden a bit more when they cool.

Allow the cookies to cool on the baking paper. They’re more brittle when warm, so they break more easily.

These are the finished cookies

The difficult bits

Any recipe, no matter how simple, has its difficult points.

Consistency of the cookie dough

The exact consistency of the dough depends on whether you want to roll out the dough and cut the cookies in shape, of if you’re lazy like me.

For rolling the dough you need it more flexible and more moist, but not too sticky.

When you take the dough out of the food processor, it should be fairly soft, as it will become harder and hence more difficult to roll out after it has rested in the fridge.

Baking time

The exact time your cookies should be in the oven depends on your oven, how thick you make the cookies, and how moist the cookie dough is.

As always in the kitchen, you need to experiment.

Credits

I started from this Danish cookie recipe and made my own modifications.