Snickers Cookies

"Hey Sarah, why don't we try these Snickers cookies from Safeway?  They could be nice!"

Now that sounds like a challenge.  Fret not, dear readers, I'm not blogging about some dodgy cookies from Safeway.  Well, not just blogging about some dodgy cookies from Safeway.  When those homebrand Safeway Snickers cookies mysteriously found their way into our shopping basket, I knew I just had try and make a better version at home.  What's with the huge list of ingredients?  I don't even know what half of those things are: emulsifiers (322 from soy!), compound dark chocolate, shortening blend... blergh.

And here is my version. Just good quality unsalted butter, brown and caster sugars, vanilla extract, an egg, flour, some bicarb, some salt, toasted peanuts and milk chocolate.  And of course, some chopped up Snickers bars.  Aaah...

I based these cookies on Nigella Lawson's chocolate chip cookies (from Kitchen), but you can use your favourite chocolate-chip cookie recipe.  I chopped up a couple of 65g Snickers bars and added them to the dough with the chocolate chips and the peanuts.  (I reduced the volume of chocolate chips and peanuts accordingly so that the total volume of add-ins remained the same).

Here are the Snickers bars... yum yum.  Don't forget to taste test!

All the add-ins.  I used unsalted roasted peanuts, but I think that salted peanuts might work well too.  (Although if that were the case, I'd avoid putting any salt in the dough itself).

Mixing the dough...

And with the nuts and chocolate...

Nigella says to use a quarter cup measure to portion out the dough.  This resulted in evenly-sized cookies, but they were huge!  (Insert gratuitous joke about how Nigella has big cookies, har har).  I think somewhere between quarter-cup and one-tablespoon would be perfect - I should stay on the lookout for a 30 ml mini ice-cream scoop.

And here's one of mine, next to one of Woolworth's.  In all fairness, the Woolies' ones weren't completely terrible, they were just very average.  I don't get why anyone would buy something that calorific, when you could easily bake something.  (Or, you know, just buy a Snickers bar!)

They were unpleasantly tough and chewy, with all the add-ins cut up so small that the texture was uniformly soft - you could barely detect the presence of peanuts, chocolate chips or Snickers pieces!  (Although the inability to detect it is a good thing when it comes to compound chocolate.)  Nope, definitely sticking to home made!!

Mmm... melty...

"Hey Sarah, why don't we try these Snickers cookies from Safeway?  They could be nice!"

Now that sounds like a challenge.  Fret not, dear readers, I'm not blogging about some dodgy cookies from Safeway.  Well, not just blogging about some dodgy cookies from Safeway.  When those homebrand Safeway Snickers cookies mysteriously found their way into our shopping basket, I knew I just had try and make a better version at home.  What's with the huge list of ingredients?  I don't even know what half of those things are: emulsifiers (322 from soy!), compound dark chocolate, shortening blend... blergh.

And here is my version. Just good quality unsalted butter, brown and caster sugars, vanilla extract, an egg, flour, some bicarb, some salt, toasted peanuts and milk chocolate.  And of course, some chopped up Snickers bars.  Aaah...

I based these cookies on Nigella Lawson's chocolate chip cookies (from Kitchen), but you can use your favourite chocolate-chip cookie recipe.  I chopped up a couple of 65g Snickers bars and added them to the dough with the chocolate chips and the peanuts.  (I reduced the volume of chocolate chips and peanuts accordingly so that the total volume of add-ins remained the same).

Here are the Snickers bars... yum yum.  Don't forget to taste test!

All the add-ins.  I used unsalted roasted peanuts, but I think that salted peanuts might work well too.  (Although if that were the case, I'd avoid putting any salt in the dough itself).

Mixing the dough...

And with the nuts and chocolate...

Nigella says to use a quarter cup measure to portion out the dough.  This resulted in evenly-sized cookies, but they were huge!  (Insert gratuitous joke about how Nigella has big cookies, har har).  I think somewhere between quarter-cup and one-tablespoon would be perfect - I should stay on the lookout for a 30 ml mini ice-cream scoop.

And here's one of mine, next to one of Woolworth's.  In all fairness, the Woolies' ones weren't completely terrible, they were just very average.  I don't get why anyone would buy something that calorific, when you could easily bake something.  (Or, you know, just buy a Snickers bar!)

They were unpleasantly tough and chewy, with all the add-ins cut up so small that the texture was uniformly soft - you could barely detect the presence of peanuts, chocolate chips or Snickers pieces!  (Although the inability to detect it is a good thing when it comes to compound chocolate.)  Nope, definitely sticking to home made!!

Mmm... melty...