'Like a virgin, blogging for the very first time.'

I can't believe I just used a line from a Madonna song to title my very first blog entry... But here it is! MY FIRST BLOG POST! I've been meaning to do this for awhile now, and it has sat on my 'to-do list' quietly bugging me for far too long. If you've stumbled across my blog thinking it's anything to do with my hungry dog, I'm sorry for misleading you. The name comes courtesy of my very amazing boyfriend and I will explain it more in my next post. But basically this is a food blog, at least in the sense that my random musings and mumblings will be punctuated by recipes. I talk a lot so I can only assume that my blog posts may follow a similar vein.

I bit about me: I'm 24 years old and I've been living in Wellington for almost a year now, I grew up in Auckland - I can almost feel people clicking the 'x' in the corner when they read that, but bear with me! I'm studying at Victoria University and I spend an awful lot of money on baking and cooking ingredients. I also seem to spend an awful lot of time falling down, often in really embarassing ways (I fell off the cross trainer at the gym the other day, and last year I took out an entire yoga class in a domino sort of way...) so while I'm not going to promise to be a klutz it is likely that my blogs will feature stories for you to point and laugh at.

Also in each blog, aside from far too much talking and a recipe I'm also going to try to give one of my favourite places a 'plug', so here is my first; I get my People's coffee from Milk Crate, and the other day I was feeling like a pick me up so I went there for their delicious muesli and a latte. If you live in Wellington or you pop in for a visit, I recommend you put Milk Crate on your list, and just in case you're not convinced here's a photo of my breakfast:

Earlier this year I fell head first into the cupcake frenzy that has hit everywhere and it was only when a friend jokingly (?) questioned my ability to bake anything else that I emerged from the piped icing haze. It was hard to do, just look at how pretty they are!

I still love making cupcakes, they are something of a speciality of mine so I won't apologise for their frequent occurence in my blog, but I DO bake other things! I also cook, and I'm just getting into preserving which I'm sure will increase as Christmas approaches because preserved treats make great presents! Anyway, enough talking it's time for a recipe! This is a food blog after all! In my opinion, every baker needs a few basic recipes that they swear by, and one of the 'must have' recipes in an AMAZING chocolate chip cookie recipe. I found this recipe here, (my favourite food blog so far) and she got it from this blog. I've made a couple of little changes but it's basically the same recipe.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 ½ cups plain flour
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp Maldon sea salt (if you’re using normal salt I’d use a slightly heaped ¼ tsp)
280g unsalted butter
1 ¼ cups brown sugar
1 cup Demerara sugar (you can use raw sugar)
2 free-range eggs (because cages are cruel!)
2 messy teaspoons vanilla extract
600g chocolate chips/chunks

Sift the flour, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl and add the salt. Cream the butter and sugars. Add eggs one at a time and then the vanilla. Add the sweet buttery goodness to the dry mixture, then add the chocolate.

I like to make these for my boyfriend and he loves dark chocolate so I usually use blocks of Lindt 85% cocoa, and Cadbury dark chocolate chips. In my most recent batch I made up the 600g of chocolate using a 250g bar of ‘Whittakar’s 62% Cocoa Dark Mocha’, a 100g bar of Lindt 85% and a 250g of  ‘Whittaker’s 33% Creamy Milk’ and they went down a treat. You could try other flavoured chocolates if you felt like experimenting in your own 'lab' and the recipe also works just as well with milk chocolate, just use a wee bit less salt.

Mix until just combined. I use my hands, I think you get a better mixture without any floury lumps AND you get to lick your fingers once you’re done! 

You can cook the cookies straight away, but they get better after a few hours in the fridge, and your cookies will be smaller and fatter (that’s how I like my cookies!). If you want to cook them straight away do so on 180C for about 10 to 15 minutes depending on your oven.  Roll out small balls of dough and flatten just a little using either a fork or a wooden spoon. Otherwise wrap in Gladwrap and leave in the fridge overnight, then cook following the instructions above. Cookie dough will keep in the fridge for about a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

That's all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading it. I'm a total grammar and syntax Nazi so feel free to slam me in the comments if I've made any typos!

x Hungry Lab