My partner would probably quite happily live on cookies given half a chance. It may surprise you – given the subject of this recipe – to know that I am not a really big fan of either cookies or white chocolate (although I do love anything lemon flavoured).
Having said that I must confess that the one exception to this is the cookies you get from the supermarket bakery that are big, misshapen and slightly under baked giving them a slight melting gooeyness…. mmmm soooo good.
I do like to try and make things that we both like when it comes to baking though (and he really does love cookies) so I set out to try and make some that we would both enjoy – I’m actually quite happy with the results.
These come out as lovely big cookies with splodges of melting white chocolate contrasting with the sweet citrussy lemon. The amount of lemon I’ve used -and the mix of both zest and juice- means it doesn’t come out too strong, tart or sour but doesn’t get overwhelmed by the white chocolate either (as I’ve found is so frequently a problem when baking with it).
Please note – as I’ve said in the recipe – they spread out quite a lot whilst baking! I always use the same baking trays for the same things (because I find it makes life easier). The ones I use for cookies are roughly 25cm X 35cm like these and I put 12 balls of cookie dough on each tray. They DO need some space to spread out but I’ve found through experimentation that if they have too much space they just keep on spreading out and end up too thin.
These are not beautiful looking or perfectly formed cookies – they taste heavenly but they are rustic, odd shaped and completely non uniform. If you really desperately do want them more perfect looking for any reason, I’d say you’d have to actually bake them in a cookie cutter or egg ring or the like.
You may have wondered why I didn’t just use white chocolate chips here. To be honest, when I made the recipe up, I only had bars of white cooking chocolate in the cupboard – once I was happy with the taste of the recipe I had always intended to buy some white chocolate chips. Surprisingly, when I got round to doing it with chips, I actually found that we both preferred them done with the smashed up bars. I think the difference is that with the bars, when you smash them up you don’t get perfect or uniform bits – this means that in the baked cookies, there are tiny bits that melt into them and bits that stay whole, giving you that fresh bakery cookie feel and their rustic look. Of course, if you wanted you could use the white chocolate chips for ease.
As always, let me know how you got on with them or any changes in ingredients or method that you really loved in the comments or by using the contact me section. Enjoy DDx
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Gooey white chocolate and lemon cookies
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 14–18 cookies 1x
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
Soft lemon cookies with splodges and chunks of white chocolate throughout – even better than bakery cookies!
Ingredients
- 100 g light brown sugar
- 125 g caster sugar
- 125 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 225 g self raising flour
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 200 g white chocolate
- Zest and juice of 2 lemons
Instructions
- Put the white chocolate in a freezer bag and bash with a rolling pin to break up. Don’t pulverise it – these cookies will come out best if there are some small bits and some chunks.
- Preheat the oven to 180℃ / fan 160℃ / 350℉. Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
- Cream the butter together with both sugars in a large mixing bowl. Add the egg and vanilla extract.
- Grate over the lemon zest and then add the juice.
- While beating with an electric hand mixer, gradually add in the flour. Keep beating until a kind of crumbly dough starts to form.
- Add in the smashed white chocolate and use your clean hands to almost knead it into the cookie dough.
- Split the dough into balls about the size of a large Brussels sprout. Put them on the prepared trays – they will spread out in the oven so give them some space.
- Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until they have just started to get some colour round the edges – they will look really undercooked but this is what gives the gooeyness (plus they will firm up a bit when cooling down).
- Allow to cool completely on the tray.
Notes
- Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 10-15 minutes
Nutrition
- Calories: 266.57kcal
