Coconut Oil + Chocolate Chip Cookies Ft. MyProtein

Happy Easter! If you follow my beauty, lifestyle and fashion blog (here) then you may have already seen my blog post all about MyProtein which included products kindly sent to me from the lovely people at The Hut Group (here). I am finally getting round to publishing my recipe for the coconut oil and chocolate chip cookies I mentioned in that post. I adapted the recipe from this website - I halved all of the ingredients as well.

Tools + Ingredients: 

- Scales

- Mixing bowl or food processor 

- Spoons

- Measuring cups 

- Baking Trays 

- Greaseproof paper

- Approx. 1/3 cup of solid virgin coconut oil (mine is from MyProtein)

- 1/2 Teaspoon of Vanilla - I used the Taylor + Colledge extract 

- 1 cup of plain white flour

- 1/2 of cup brown sugar

- 1/2 Tsp bicarbonate of soda

- 1/4 cup of granulated sugar/regular sugar

- 1 egg

- 3/4 cup of milk and dark chocolate

Step One: Measure out and combine the flour and bicarbonate of soda in a mixing bowl.

Step Two: Beat the solid virgin coconut oil until it is smoother and less solid in a food processor - it will be so much quicker and easier than doing it by hand. Then add in the brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla extract (optional) into the food processor as well and beat until combined, smooth and creamy. Beat the egg and add it to the food processor and mix. 

Step Three: Gradually add the flour mixture into the food processor - do this slowly otherwise it might not be as smooth or evenly combined. Add in what ever chocolate you want, make sure it is in small pieces though. Also the amount of chocolate is up to you, I would suggest a good amount as mixing the chocolate in can be difficult because the mixture is very thick and sticky and some cookies can end up having very little chocolate in them. 

Step Four: After mixing in the small chocolate pieces use a tablespoon to place the mixture into small discs onto a baking tray (covered with greaseproof/baking paper). I made the mistake of adding too much mixture for each cookie and they tuned out huge so half a tablespoon or even a teaspoon amount of mixture will make a good size for each cookie. 

Step Five: Bake for approx. 8 to 15 on 180 Celsius or 170 Celsius for fan (also cut the baking time by a couple of minutes for fan assisted ovens as ours is). Check to see if the cookies are baked through by poking a cocktail stick into a few of the cookies, if it comes out clean with virtually no bits on it then they are cooked. Leave to cool slightly and eat! This recipe made about 10 large cookies. 

What do you think of the coconut oil and chocolate chip cookies I made? Have you been baking over the Easter weekend? 

Taylor & Colledge Natural Extract Pastes

Baking is one of my favourite things to do, I love experimenting with recipes and products so when the opportunity arose to test some interesting extract pastes, I couldn't say no! Myself and my mum have been testing these products over the past couple of weeks and we are definitely impressed. 

I have six of the *Taylor & College Natural Extract Pastes (£3.59 each) which range in flavours from vanilla, almond and coconut to more unusual flavours including lavender, lemon and peppermint. The bottles are so handy, they are mess free, easy to use/store and it is very easy to dispense as much or as little as needed. The pastes are gluten free, GMO free and propylene glycol free. The pastes contain pure natural ingredients such almond milk, natural lemon extract, Australian peppermint water, Australian lavender water and pure coconut water. 

I first tried the vanilla, lemon and lavender pastes in basic cupcakes and they were fantastic - the flavour came through but not very strongly. However, the cupcakes seemed to need a lot longer to cook through. The vanilla extract has little vanilla pod seeds in it which show through in the cupcake when its baked which I love as it looks more authentic and homemade. I also used the lemon flavour in pastry for a lemon meringue pie and it made the buttery pasty so delicious with a hint of a fresh, authentic lemon flavour. 

The pastes can not only be used in baking such as cupcakes, cookies, scones, teacakes and fudge but they can also be used to make  mousses, ice cream, soup, salad dressing, frosting and more! I will definitely be using the pastes for other recipes so stay tuned as I will be posting recipes on my blog soon!

Here are the results of our baking efforts, the lemon meringue pie was delicious and perfect for spring/summer!

Have you tried these extract pastes? Have you been baking recently?