Chewy fruit and nut cookies

I made the mistake of making these cookies, for the first time, late at night, intending them to be a treat for my daughter’s play date the following day.  All I can say is that they didn’t make it through the night.  As I sat down to watch TV, I kept finding myself popping to the kitchen to sneak another one and, to my shame, they didn’t make it through an entire episode of The Flash!

This recipe is a combination of several of my cookie recipes and I decided to use my favourite elements from each.  More often than not, such experimenting doesn’t work.  But, holy moly, this was a winner and everything about them was right.  The spread, the rise, the texture, the flavours, are all spot on for me.  They’re incredibly chewy, incredibly sweet and addictively moreish!

Makes about 28 cookies

Ingredients

• 4 ounces / 115g coconut oil
• 4½ ounces / 135g plain flour
• ½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ teaspoon of baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• 4 ounces / 120g golden caster sugar
• 5 ounces / 140g light muscovado sugar
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1½ ounces / 40g desiccated coconut
• 2½ ounces / 70g oatmeal
• 1¾ ounces / 50g chopped pecans
• 2¾ ounces / 80g raisins
• 3 ounces / 90g chopped dates

Method

Preheat the oven to 190c (170c fan)

Line three baking sheets with non stick baking parchment.

Melt the oil gently in a small saucepan large enough to hold the sugars.

While the oil is melting, sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt into a medium sized bowl.

Once the oil is completely melted, take the pan off the heat and add the sugars.  Stir thoroughly, before beating in the eggs and vanilla.

Add the sugar mixture into the dried ingredients and stir well before incorporating the remainder of the ingredients.

Roll the cookie dough into large, tablespoon-sized balls and place a few centimetres apart onto the baking sheets (I manage to fit nine on a sheet).

Cook in the oven for 10 minutes then cool on a wire rack.

Tips

To make sure you get 28 good-sized balls of cookie dough, start by dividing the dough into two equal parts, then half each again. Now you only need to get seven equal-sized balls from each of the four lumps.

Trivia

Santa Claus (Father Christmas) is estimated to consume over 336 billion cookies each Christmas Eve.