Milky Way and chocolate chip cookies and a movie that oscillates too much

Despite being addicted to both movies and music I’m not into musicals – with very few exceptions (one that comes to mind right now is Moulin Rouge), it seems impossible for me to enjoy that kind of movie, no matter how hard I try – like the four times I tried watching Chicago with no success (the movie made me fall asleep every single time and I wasn’t even tired).

Last night, however, I gave Hustle & Flow a go, because I remembered all the fuss created by the movie back when it was released and how praised Terrence Howard’s performance was; indeed Howard is amazing as Djay – and I never expected much from him as an actor – and I found really wonderful to watch a movie with a cast formed basically by black actors (how rare is that?), but by the end of it I had mixed feelings, and the reason was that I thought it oscillated too much: there were great scenes permeated with scenes that added nothing to the story or were poorly written/acted, and it kept going that way up until the end. It’s not a bad movie at all, but I certainly expected more from it.

Chocolate chip cookies, on the other hand, hardly ever disappoint, and Jo Wheatley’s are no exception – crunchy around the edges and soft in the middle, they are great all the way, no oscillation in sight.
The original recipe calls for dark chocolate only, but after I added chopped candy bars to brownies and got these as a result I thought it was about time I tried doing the same with another classic, and when I tried one cookie still warm from the oven I knew I’d done good. :D

Milky Way and chocolate chip cookies
slightly adapted from the oh, so delicious A Passion for Baking

185g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g light brown sugar
125g demerara sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
400g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
100g dark chocolate, chopped – I used one with 70% cocoa solids
4 Milky Way bars, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper*.
Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugars until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and scrape the sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.
On low speed, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix just until combined. Still on low speed, mix in the chocolate chunks and the chopped candy bars (if necessary, finish mixing with a rubber spatula).
Place 2 leveled tablespoons of dough per cookie onto the prepared sheets, 5cm (2in) apart. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove from the oven and sharply bang the baking tray on the work surface to deflate the cookies, then return to the oven for a further 6-8 minutes until pale golden brown.
Cool on the sheets over a wire rack.

* some bits of nougat/caramel might melt and stuck to the paper once cold – to avoid that, while the cookies are still warm, gently release them from the paper and reshape the cookies into a circle if the melted bits run off and change their shape; I thought of using foil instead of baking paper to avoid the sticking issue, but then I thought the foil would transfer more heat to the cookies and make them too flat

Makes about 38 large cookies