Soft, Chewy, Buttery Perfect Pecan & Chocolate Chip Cookies

make wonderful American-style soft cookies
Cookies are wonderful, when they are perfectly under-baked in the middle. When they’re over-baked, you end up with a crisp biscuit, which is fine too, but nothing like as deeply soothing and satisfying as a soft, chewy, buttery cookie.

The main way I decide what to bake next is, more often than not, about something that needs eating up. I classify things as ‘needing eating up’ either because they’re taking up too much room in my kitchen cupboards or shelves or because I have suddenly realised that they are past their use-by date.

On this occasion, I had bought some nougat from Marks & Spencer, which was cheap as it was already at its sell-by date. When I tried it, I wasn’t blown away by a piece on its own so, as usual, I took to the internet in search of a recipe to use it up, and hopefully elevate it, at the same time.

I stumbled upon a recipe for Nougat cookies on ‘The Perfectionist’ website (http://www.theperfectionist.co.uk/2013/02/nougat-cookies.html) and the results were outstanding. I had more mothers and babies than our living room could cope with coming round that afternoon and these freshly-baked, buttery, chewy cookies went down a storm.

I was so impressed with the texture and the taste of the cookie itself that I have made them more times than I can count since but nougat has never made it back in.

I’ve tried many variations and here the recipe for my favourite: pecan & chocolate chips