Wednesday 1 August 2012

Ethical Cookies

Last Friday I decided to invent another cookie recipe as I hadn't experimented for a while. I like to invent new soups, stews or cookies as I feel a quick win from these kind of things. They are not particularly hard, yield a lot of food (I'm greedy, you may have noticed), and are usually delicious.


I was all set, I was ready to go. I had my ingredients all set out and then I realised to my horror I'd made a major boob. My gooey filling was from Nestle. I've not eaten or bought Nestle products for years. For those of you who don't know why Nestle are best left alone, there's some good information here and here.

So what to do? Deny all knowledge? Bury the evidence? Nope. I decided to blog about it and share alternatives. So we will not be naming the offending product for the rest of the blog post. Alternatives that would be good include: Chocos, Reeses buttercups and anything with a nice gooey centre wrapped in chocolate. Feel free to experiment in finding them by eating your way around the chocolates you know of. Call it research.

So here's the recipe and how these cookies are made. For the gooey bit, I've said 'ingredient X'. I will remember to READ labels better in the future. I had a moment, I blame the heat.

Nom Nom Cookies
Makes approx 24 cookies

2 packs of ingredient X
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Baking Powder
125g Unsalted butter (at room temp and cubed)
100g Caster Sugar
1 Large Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1. Grease and line 2 baking sheet and preheat your oven to 180c/ Gas Mark 4. 
2. Sieve together and combine flour, baking powder and salt. 
3. In another bowl, cream together butter and sugar before beating in the egg and vanilla. 
4. Mix all of these together. 
5. Using your hands, scoop out a ball of about 1 tbsp's worth of dough, press ingredient X into the centre as pictured and roll into a ball. 


 6. Space out the dough balls on the trays, squashing them ever so slightly flat as you do so. 


7. Bake for 16 minutes and try to allow to cool before devouring. 


 I realised these could be improved further still be adding some chocolate or cinnamin chips because what else could be better to add to a sugary treat than more sugar? 




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My partner is going to LOVE that recipe!

timothyandreas28 said...

I was catching up on blogs today and your mention of Nestle caught my eye. I didn't know about any boycott so I read both the links you provided.
I am a total proponent of breastmilk (I breastfed my baby until he was 15 months old) and I always tell the people I know that conditions permitting, they should really try to breastfeed instead of opting for formula. And I always scoff at people who says that babies above 1 year old should still be given formula instead of regular fresh pasteurized cow's milk (if already weaned).
But the Guardian article make it sound as if formula milk should be banned altogether, and I think it's unfair. I have a friend who can't exclusively breastfeed her baby because she has thalassemia. I know people who were not able to breastfeed because they have to work and their working conditions do not permit them to take their babies and/or pump. Formula is better than rice gruel (which is what's traditionally given to babies of low-income families in Indonesia).

I agree that milk manufacturers should NOT advertise formula milk as better for babies (brain growth! health! multivitamins! I say marketing gimmicks, all that.) but apart from that, government should also take part in providing lactation support for new mothers, especially in rural villages (and even in cities, there are modern, high-income high-education mothers who do not have the knowledge and support needed to exclusively breastfeed their babies).

I personally experienced the many challenges of breastfeeding and the lack of support groups and lactation consultants here in Indonesia, despite living in a metropolitan city, and although I hate that manufacturers are milking money from formula milk, I lament more the fact that there is not enough public health education in developing countries.