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Writer's pictureAshley Catt

In the circle game

Perhaps it's of poor taste to speak of viral phenomena during these times, but the hotel group Hilton recently released the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies that they give to visitors at their DoubleTree franchise locations and it has spread like an inferno over dry leaves. Now, I know that basing a post on these cookies sounds like I'm pulling this blog into some kind of bourgeoisie nightmare, but I promise that I have good reasons. Believe it or not, this cookie is worth sticking around for, and I hope that the story I'm about to tell is too.


Just under four years ago, prior to living in London, I had booked tickets to a music show (Kari Rueslåtten and Antimatter on a double billing) in the city. Friend-of-the-blog Keith, who was then boyfriend-of-the-(then-non-existant)-blog, had planned to tag along with me. We'd planned to meet at Canada Water station to drop stuff at the hotel we'd booked to stay the night at before moving on to Camden to catch the show. I won't go into the finer-grain detail here, but Keith was held up at work this day and it was too late to make it to the concert. As a result we decided to press on to the hotel; a slightly disgruntled me and a massively apologetic Keith.


As Canada Water is primarily a residential area of London, we were unsure of how to get from A to B, and if I remember correctly the usually-handy Google Maps proved to be just as befuddling. Our path to the hotel involved traipsing down shallow canals, through an ecological park and a woodland planted over several infilled docks; apparently in Canada Water there is no such thing as going "as the crow flies". We did eventually emerge on to a stretch of road running parallel to the River Thames, and lo and behold, the Hilton DoubleTree stood before us.


After a short lapse of confusion over the location of the entrance, we eventually made it inside. This sense of relief was quickly punctuated by receptionist informing us that there was no booking under my name; quite possibly the worst thing you could hear in this situation. I had reserved the room from a discount travel website (yes, this story isn't that bougie) which is a slightly humbling thing to have to point out, however a closer inspection of our booking details revealed that we were actually at a totally wrong DoubleTree. To this day, I don't have an explanation as to why I thought Canada Water was the right place to go, but it turns out that we were supposed to be at the location behind the London ExCel centre. The present-day gravity of this mistake absolutely slaughters me and I'm so impatient to tell you why but God DAMN it (apologies to my fundamentalist readers) I have to finish the story first.


After a collective "huh", the receptionist helpfully chimed in to say that there was a ferry service that operated from the back of the hotel (for some reason the DoubleTree has a docking station as part of the Travel for London network; this confuses me slightly). They gave us free tickets to take the boat closer to our destination and, more significantly, a cookie each for our journey. I'm sure we were somewhat caught off guard, as well as Keith having a mild aversion to waterborne travel, but we made our way down and sat ourselves on the boat.


Now, the cookies; yes, they were indeed the fabled ones, as described in the opening paragraph. I remember us both exuberantly gushing after taking our first bite. There must have been heaters in the reception desks, as the baked goods virtually glowed with warmth. I'm not known for being spontaneously articulate, but these cookies could have turned me on to the path of the troubadour, composing epic courtly romances fixed on the ardour I had for this chocolate-chipped confection. My feelings were certainly stoked to such an intensity that I forgot all about being kind-of-mad at Keith, and just let the city drift by in a spray of river mist and a haze of sweetness.


I can't really remember where the boat dropped us, probably because I surrendered the majority of my memory to preserve the cookie in a state of intact sensual recollection. We made it sometime that evening to the place where we were actually meant to stay the night with the dearest hope that another mistake hadn't been made. Mercifully the location was correct and we were presented with another cookie each to take up to our room. Yes, our hearts both exploded with gratitude and the receptionist probably thought one of us was having some form of traumatic episode. The tragic thing is, I had brought biscuits up with me (Nigella Lawson's Cranberry & Pistachio Biscotti from Nigellissima) for us to try but they were utterly eclipsed by the DoubleTree's warm rounds of wonderment. To this day, Keith still maintains the blasphemous untruth that they were "just as good".


Between that moment and yesterday, my life had been totally devoid of DoubleTree cookies. After wandering this metaphorical wasteland, I could only act with utmost urgency upon seeing the release of the secret recipe (I don't know if it was actually secret, but it's way more fun to pretend that it was). This involved tagging Keith in the news article on Facebook with a profusion of exclamation marks, before getting around to making the cookies merely days after seeing the recipe. Most of the time when I find something I want to make, it takes me aeons to get around to making it; not this time. I tried the recipe, and with much hesitancy too. Could they possibly be as good? Maybe I was just delerious from the chaos of that fateful day. Not to mention my chequered past when it comes to cookie making. But, no! I followed the instructions and it worked, I tell you! There's a certain rapturous quality to having these in the comfort of your own home.


As an endnote to that story, I'd like to add that at the time of writing, I've been living in Canada Water for just over a year now. I started up this blog here, I finished my masters degree here and I have been quarantined here too. My 22-year old self would have been perplexed to have known he would have ended up in the city altogether, let alone the place he near enough got lost in with his then-partner. But, I had the canals in my mind when we were looking for a flat and suggested it without really thinking it would be taken seriously. Here I am though, and I'm still in love with the docklands, the river and the wildlife refuges that pepper the area (not to mention the lower-than-average rent prices). I'm grateful for the slip in logic that led me here. I guess this is what Joni Mitchell sung about us all being within the circle game, right?


So yes, my recipe today is going to be a slightly amended version (and converted into metric units) of the Hilton Double Tree Cookie, the original of which you can find here. I do feel weirdly corporatist about presenting you with something produced by a multi-national company rather than by myself or a food writer, but this cookie does represent a very significant slice of personal history to me. Plus, I stick by what I said a couple of posts ago about the centrality of the story. Anyhow, it would be pretty unconscionable to tell that story and post a recipe for some form of kale salad. I'm sure it's better this way for all involved.


Double Tree Chocolate Chip Cookie

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 20-23 minutes

Makes: 23-26 cookies


Ingredients

230g unsalted butter, softened

165g of granulated sugar

150g of light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract

1/4 tsp of lemon juice

285g of flour

45g of rolled oats

1 tsp of baking soda

1 tsp of salt

1/4 tsp of cinnamon

465g of chocolate chips

200g of chopped walnuts


Method

Preheat the oven to 150 C (130 C for fan powered ovens) and line a large baking tray with a sheet of baking parchment.


Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat. Once the pan has been warmed, add in the chopped walnuts and toast until they are beginning to brown. This should take around 3-5 minutes. Set aside to cool while you prepare the other ingredients.


Cream the butter and both sugars in a large mixing bowl until light. This should take around 2-4 minutes, depending on the type of mixer you are using.

Add eggs, vanilla extract and lemon juice into the bowl and continue to mix it in. Continue to cream the mixture for an additional 3 minutes or until the mixture becomes fluffy.


Slowly stir in the flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon until combined. Make sure you don't over mix at this stage, as this will produce gluten which can result in an overly chewy cookie. At this point, stir in the chocolate and the walnuts until combined consistently.

Take roughly 3 tbsps of dough for each cookie, and roll into a ball. Place each ball on the pre-prepared baking tray, spaced at least 2 inches apart and flatten slightly into a thick, circular shape. Place the dough in the fridge for 10 minutes prior to baking.


Bake for 20 to 23 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and the centre is still soft. Cookies will always appear very soft when they initially come out of the oven but will firm up quickly upon cooling. Take care not to over-bake at this stage as you want to ensure that there is still some softness.


Remove from the oven, and leave to cool in the baking tray for 10 minutes before removing on to a wire baking rack.





Notes & Adjustments

  • I did half of this recipe to save on costs, and the recipe can be scaled to half quantities in this scenario.

  • The original recipe doesn't specify to toast the walnuts, so this step is technically optional. However, I think it would be amiss not to given that toasting really does permit the nutty flavour to bloom. Actually, I did burn mine very slightly in the process, but even that is far superior to an untoasted nut.

  • If you would prefer, I imagine that this recipe would also be good with pecans or macadamias substituted for the walnuts. Or you could also use a blend of the three.

  • Instead of using chocolate chips, I bought bars of chocolate that I chopped into chunks. Have you noticed how much more expensive it seems to be to buy chocolate in it's chipped state? I can never seem to get past this. Plus, I prefer chunks, so I'm going to say that you could use whichever form works best for you.

  • The original recipe doesn't specify to chill the cookies before baking. I did this simply to allay my own fears about cookies spreading into amorphous masses while in the oven. So, this step is strictly optional but I cannot guarantee what will happen if you were to skip it!


One last thing; Keith has a photography blog which you can find right here! Speaking as a total layman of the discipline, I can attest that he takes some incredible pictures with lots of various subjects, and I'm not just saying that because he's a friend-of-the-blog. Do give his work a look.


*Actually, lastly I'm thinking about making a page on my blog that mentions blogs that I read a lot (food or otherwise) as well as potentially some related YouTube channels and also songs I've mentioned throughout these posts. Do keep an eye out for that! I think as food writers, it's incredibly important for us to be open about our own sources of inspiration. Even if we do create a recipe ourselves, we pick things up and learn things from other writers/bloggers/chefs, and also people around us. In that case, I want to acknowledge some of my go-to sources and encourage people to check those out too.

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