Recipe (great for Halloween treats): Maple Syrup & Dark Chocolate Cookies

Recently, a lovely friend of ours, who came visiting with her daughter from Canada, brought us some lovely maple syrup biscuits. Needless to say, they didn't last all that long! Well, I love maple syrup, so I decided to go searching on the web for a maple syrup cookie recipe that I could try making. I found loads :). I also have a penchant for chocolate chip cookies as well, so I decided to combine both my loves into one cookie. And below is the result. These are lovely on a chilly evening with )if you're a Brit anyway) a nice cup of tea - they'd also make great treats for a Halloween part (bat-dropping cookie anyone? ;P).

Maple Syrup & Dark Chocolate Cookies

Soo, in case you want to make these rather yummy cookies, here's my recipe, it makes 60 cookies of about 2.5 inches round:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup / 227g / 8oz butter or baking spread, softened at room temp
• 1 cup / 227g / 8oz caster sugar (US granulated sugar is fine) - if you want an even richer flavour, use brown sugar instead
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup / 237ml pure maple syrup (no getting the blended stuff)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups / 908g / 32oz self-raising flour (if using all purpose flour then add 2 teaspoons of baking soda)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup / 200g / 8oz dark chocolate chips (optional, but I like chocolate) 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C / 350 degrees F & grease your cookie sheets (if you're like me an have a small oven, you will have make more than one batch (3 for me), so you'll be washing and re-greasing your sheets several times)
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar (I used an electric whisk for this, you can do it by hand it you want to build up your arm muscles, or put it in your mixer)
3. Add the egg, maple syrup and vanilla extract and mix until you have a light brown, soft and airy paste (it will be quite sloppy at this point it needs to be to take all that flour)
4. Sift the flour and salt (and baking soda if you need it) into the bowl and also add the chocolate chips if your're using them. Stir until all the flour is blended in.
5. Using a teaspoon take a heaped spoonful of the mixture and place onto your baking sheet, repeat this procedure leaving 1/2 an inch or so between cookies to allow for spread - see image below.
6. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes, or until golden brown (depends on your oven).
7. When you get the cookies out of the oven, leave them on the sheet for a couple of minutes, this allows them to harden a little so you don't squidge them out of shape when getting them off the sheet. Then, using a fish slice, lift each cookie onto a wire rack to cool.

Laying out cookie mixture on baking sheet

~

Something else you might like for Halloween, my 5-star ghost story, The Burning Web.

Is it symptoms left from his brain haemorrhage, or a guilty conscience that is making Tristan McCall see things no-one else can?

Forced out of the police by scandal and illness, Tris is trying to rebuild his life through the renovation of the home he hopes to share with Xander, his husband. A sprawling Gothic pile, Berwick House is in need of attention, but Tris soon realises the attention is not all one way. Faced with a presence in the house only he can sense, Tris must decide if his damaged brain is playing tricks on him, or if Berwick House really holds a dark and dangerous message from beyond the grave.