Short and sweet.

Sorry for the lack of posting after my very short run as a blogger. I've been at home on holiday and had a mammoth task of preparing a dinner party for my parents. It was very exciting and I got to try lots of new things which makes for an interesting read but along with that, as well as a few heavy days of socialising, I have been somewhat kapoot (if that is even a word?) I decided to do a short entry before bed just to keep my sparse group of readers entertained.
So the recipe of today is chocolate cookies! Always a favourite with any normal folk but this recipe (or recipes) has a nice little twist to spice things up a bit. Excuse the pun. My boyfriend and I made a batch of these each, I went for the chilli and he went for the ginger. As much as it pains me to say I think the ginger ones were better but that was only down to them being a bit sweeter. The kick from the chilli goes really well with the chocolate and would go down well with people who don't usually have a sweet tooth. When I make these again (they were that tasty) I will probably use milk chocolate with the chilli to sweeten them up a touch.
The cookies were delicious warm but also good for the few days they lasted after baking. We were super cool and took them warm in a bag to the midnight showing of Harry Potter. Hey I know how to live life on the wild side.

Chocolate & Chilli Cookies:
Makes 12

100g plain flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (I actually used ground ginger in both recipes)
50g muscovado sugar
50g butter
1/4 tsp mild fresh chilli (I used dried chilli flakes and lots of them, the flavour may have been better with the fresh chilli however)
2 tbsp golden syrup
100g plain dark chocolate, finely chopped

Stir up all the dry ingredients in a bowl and then add the butter and chilli. Rub together as you would a crumble mix until you have a mixture that resembles fine breadcrumbs. Then add the syrup and mix with a spoon and then your hand until you have a ball. Knead in the chocolate and then shape the dough into a sausage shape. Slice your sausage (hehe) in to 12 and then roll each little chocolate lump in to a ball and arrange on greased or lined baking trays. Cook them off in batches at 180 degrees, gas mark 4 for 8 to 10 minutes or until they crack on top. Leave for as long as you can for them to cool before moving them or in my case eating them.

Chocolate & Ginger:
Make them in the same way as above but replace the chilli and cinnamon with 2 tbsp of chopped stem ginger, I added a little ground ginger to make them even more delicious!