Basil Chocolate Chunky Cookies are really really da best! The flavor of chocolate and basil is incomparable. Made using fresh basil leaves and chopped chocolate, the cookies are simply delightful.
Bake some more cookies from unique cookie recipes on LiG: checkerboard cookies, cranberry cookies, brownie cookies.
I mistakenly ordered 2 bags of basil from on online grocery ordering app and being me, I just couldn’t throw them away. I was left to develop quite a few basil recipes including – basil ice-cream, basil focaccia, basil pesto, pesto pasta and these cookies along others.
I had to really dig into blog-o-sphere for inspiration on using up basil, the recipes were far and few and then were full of egg or meat, which is obviously not my thing, so when I came across a Vegan Cookie recipe by Ovenly, which the author claims to be very versatile and one can successfully add fresh mint or basil, I was doing a happy dance.
And all the promises were really true, the cookies are in fact very good and the recipe is very easy to make; it requires basic ingredients and simple to whisk together. Addition of coarse sea salt is the trump card here and I highly recommend adding it. Having said that the cookie tastes equally good without the salt, so if you are not keen, then you can skip sprinkling salt before baking.
Also, the recipe calls for freezing dough balls for 10 minutes before going into the oven to hold their shape during baking. This also is a very helpful tip and I did it. V called them my best cookie ever. The best part was the after taste of these cookies, which simply put was ‘fresh’.
Moving onto the recipe. Enjoy!
How to Make Basil Chocolate Chunky Cookies?
Basil Chocolate Chunky Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 125 gram chocolate chunks coarsely choped
- ⅔ cup fresh basil chopped
- ½ tsp cinnamon powder
- ½ tsp cardamom powder elaichi powder
- ½ tsp all spice powder garam masala
- ½ cup sugar granulated
- ½ cup light brown sugar packed
- ½ cup +1 tbsp olive oil and additional
- ¼ cup +1 tbsp water
- coarse sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder, all spice powder and salt. Now add the chocolate chunks to the dry ingredient mixture and gently toss to coat.
- In a separate large bowl, whisk together both the sugars with the olive oil and water until smooth and thoroughly mixed, about 2 minutes. If there are sugar lumps, you may need to break them up before whisking. Add the flour (dry) mixture to the sugar (wet) mixture along with chopped basil leaves, and then stir using a wooden spoon until just combined. No flour should be visible but do not overmix. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours. Do not skip this step. I usually refrigerate overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 170 °C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or butter paper, alternatively you can grease the pan.
- Remove dough from the refrigerator, using a spoon or an ice cream scoop, place dough into 2-inch mounds on the prepared pan. It is recommended to freeze the balls of dough (after placing them on cookie sheet) for 10 minutes before baking as the cookies retain their shape better during baking.
- Remove the dough balls from the freezer and sprinkle the dough balls with coarse-grained sea salt, and bake for 12 to 13 minutes, or until the edges are just golden. Do not overbake. Let cool completely before serving.
Notes
- Adapted from Ovenly original recipe from here.
- You can alternatively use 1 ¼ cup of chocolate chips of your choice (as in the original Ovenly recipe) in place of chocolate chunks.
- Sprinkling the sea-salt on top f cookies before baking is a very nice addition.
- Freezing the dough balls, really helps in retaining the shape of the cookies, so do try and not skip this step.
