Baking Orange Chocolate Chippers

"A lot of good gamers can be good bakers coz it's all about using your thumb", he says.

After work today I thought it'd be fun to bake some cookies - we're still on a quest to perfect this recipe for Orange Chocolate Chippers. You might have read about the last attempt in a post below.

I don't know if it's just me, but I find you can never really follow recipes to a T. There are always tweaks you have to make due to availability of ingredients and/or utensils, and also to suit your tastebuds.

I think it's a conspiracy amongst cooks everywhere - they publish books and blogs with recipes on the pretense of 'sharing', but come on, nobody really wants to give away the real secret to yummy food so they make it as generic and elusive as possible. And they make it sound like it's the easiest thing in the world to do, so much so that you feel dumb if you don't get it right; and then because you feel dumb, you probably won't ask questions because you think people might laugh at you which only serves to further propagate the conspiracy that the recipe rocks - and there we go, full circle.

So that's where we are with the Orange Chocolate Chippers - still on the road to perfection. Doesn't help that I haven't quite decided if they taste best as crunchy cookies, or slightly soft chewy cookies.

Before getting down and dirty in the kitchen, we had to make a quick stop by the supermarket to pick up the ingredients.

And of course at the supermarket, he got distracted at the 'tv shopping section' where they sell things like the Jack Lelaine power juicer and some magic mop.

Ingredients

1 cup of vegetable shortening

3/4 cup of sugar

3 ounces of cream cheese softened

2 eggs

as much orange zest as you like (i usually use between 1 - 2 oranges)

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

2 1/3 cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon of salt

as much chocolate chips as you deem fit

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 deg c.

Now I have a lot of settings on my fancy schmancy Ariston oven (you can check them out at mayer.com.sg) and I never know which one to use. But in my mind, it just made sense to turn on the setting with the line (straight or squiggly) on the top because I'm trying to cook them.

I've since learnt otherwise - that I should be using the one with the line on the bottom rather than the top. It's for reasons unbeknownst to me, but I'm letting you in on the secret, in case you were just like me, lost.

In a bid to get a better grasp on this baking thing, I've tried googling what the symbols mean, and also read up on what people suggest as the best setting for baking. Turns out, you find nothing helpful.

I came across a couple of sites where some supposedly great baker took a stab at unravelling this great mystery. The answers did nothing for me, but the comments to the post raved about how awesome said bakers were for finally helping them understand all the ten million and one settings. Again, reinforcing my belief that it's all a bloody conspiracy.

So anyway, now you know. Just turn the oven on, and randomly select one of the ones with the line at the bottom - I chose the one with also a symbol that looks like a fan.

2. Mix shortening, sugar and cream cheese in a bowl

If you're sadistic (or lazy like me), take the cream cheese straight out of the fridge and put it into a bowl. It'll be a bitch to mash up, especially when you use just a wooden spatula and lots of grit. This was his job, naturally. Partly because he was asking for something to do (as usual), and partly because this is usually the bit I dread most. I usually like monopolising the fun bits like dropping the dough onto the tray. Makes me feel all nice and good-mother-materially.

Now shortening, truth be told, I didn't have a clue what this was - still don't for sure, but at least now discovered there are two types you can buy. One that comes in a generic, non-descript plastic box that you can buy at fairprice. or another that comes in a fancy pants packaging, branded Crisco. I've tried both, and they taste vastly different. can't say which is the better one though because it really comes down to personal preference but if you have to pick one, I'll say go for the Crisco because it says 50% less saturated fats than butter on the packaging, and also because they have these cool markings that tell you how much you're using without the need for pesky measuring cups!

Mush it all up with the sugar till it's a nice, creamy texture.

3. Add eggs, orange zest and vanilla essence

This is my favourite part because the orange zest smells so good! The original recipe called for two tablespoons of orange zest but how do you measure that anyway. So I say just grab a couple of oranges, a grater and go at it till your arms get sore. For me, that's usually somewhere between orange 1 and orange 2.

Next, add in the eggs and becareful to scoop out any red disgusting bits from the egg - you don't want any little chicks hatching in your belly. Yes, I also believe that brocoli's will sprout whole colonies along the inside walls of my large intestines. Not really. I just remove the red bits because I find them gross. He's not quite so particular, but he's also quite easily ignored on such occasions.

And then add in the vanilla essence. I used these cute heart-shaped spoons I got as a door gift at a friend's wedding recently.

4. Sift together floor and salt into mixture

Cups always confused me because I have cups of all sizes in my cupboard, up till today that is. We picked up a measuring cup thingy with markings from the supermarket because I'm really feeling like I could be a good mama baker one day who makes her own cookies and jam for her children.

This is also when he abandoned the wooden spatula and went in with his hands - thus explaining the quote above.

5. Stir in chocolate chips and drop cookie dough onto a tray for baking

I honestly think that you should just go nuts with the chocolate chips and put in as much (or as little) as you like. It's your perogative and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Finally, play cookie god by dropping the cookie dough onto the trays. As cookie god, you get to decide the fate of each and every cookie. How big or small each one is, how brown they get and whether or not they'll be loved.

It'll make your day if you're slightly fluffy like me. I said fluffy not insane.

Put the tray into the oven to bake, and check periodically. They'll be done when they're just lightly browned. Mine usually take anywhere between 30-40minutes - I honestly cannot for the life of me figure out why the original recipe said something like 10-12 minutes. It could possibly be that I haven't figured out the settings on the oven, or more likely that said recipe-writer didn't want to share the real recipe and so throws you off with mis-information like the above - again, conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy I tell you.

But anyway, the end result is pretty yummy.