Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This bake originally started life as my entry to the November Random Recipes challenge.  Dom challenged us to  pick a random recipe using our birth day and month to pick the cookbook and the recipe to bake.  Given that I broke the rules quite blatantly it probably isn't fair to enter my bake this month, although the essential  idea of the challenge was preserved, as its the first time I have baked anything from my chosen book.  And what a little gem of a recipe it is ;0)

As my birthday is the 17th Feb, I picked the 17th book in my collection, Phil Vickery's 'A Passion For Puddings' ... all going well so far ... but as my birth month is 2 I hit a wee snag.  Page 2 was the intro.  The second recipe in the book was for a very sinful but perfectly scoffable Fudgy Chocolate Croissant Pudding.  Boy did it look good!  For those who have been reading regularly you will know that I am quickly approaching a significant weight lose milestone of 1 and a half stone and this isn't something I really wanted to jeopardise after so much hard work.

So at this point I threw Dom's rules out the window and picked a recipe from the same book that could easily be passed off on other people and save me the humiliation of being frog marched out of my weekly weigh in.  Sorry Dom! 

Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Cookies
225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
170g condensed milk
350g SR flour, sifted
100g dark chocolate chips
100g hazelnuts, roasted, chopped

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale.  Stir in the condensed milk.  Mix in the flour and then work in the chocolate and the nuts.  Divide the dough in half and place each half in a square of foil or cling film.  Roll into two thick sausage shapes.  Chill well; this dough will keep well in the fridge for a week or it can be frozen until you are ready to bake.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180C.  Peel off the wrapper and cut off thick slices.  Bake on oven trays lined with baking parchment for about 15 mins or until golden brown at the edges but still a little soft.

Makes about 30 cookies
Taken from 'A Passion For Puddings'

So even though I said I was going to eat any cookies I had to sample them for blogging purposes you understand.  Wow!  Magic little cookies, a great treat to go along side a cuppa.  Next time I think I would maybe add some more chocolate chips to the mix, there seemed to be well more hazelnuts than chocolate, not necessarily a bad thing of course, but this is the Chocolate Teapot after all!