Donna's cafe-style triple choc cookies

Years ago I was sitting on a bench along a busy shopping strip in Essendon talking on the phone to my now sister-in-law Donna and I just happened to get her special triple choc cookie recipe out of her. Who knows why we were talking cookies while I was out in the Saturday morning sunshine, maybe I was having a post-workout craving that only a fellow baker could help satisfy. I scribbled the recipe on a receipt from my handbag and promptly copied it into my recipe book when I got home. Some things I forget at lightning speed, yet this I remember like it was yesterday.

Donna works in the food business and is a baker extraordinaire so if she gives me a recipe I know it will be good. For years I've guarded this "secret" recipe, even after making countless batches and hearing how good they are. Too good really. Crunchy on the outside, a little soft and chewy inside and choc full of, you guessed it, choc!

I mentioned to Donna on Sunday that I had just made "her" cookies with the "secret recipe". She basically laughed and I wonder does this mean she has found a new, improved "secret" recipe? Maybe she has a new cookie that trumps what I thought was "the" cookie?! Maybe this secret recipe is not so secret? Maybe it was just funny because we have married into a family that used to joke that we couldn't have certain recipes until we married into the tribe. My questions remained unanswered for today but one thing I do know is that Donna gave me her express permission to share this recipe here.

I love these with milk, hence the inclusion of my vintage milk bottle in these photos. Isn't it so cute? On the front it says 'Milk For Health OAKES MILK Pure Rich Safe'. If I lived closer to Castlemaine, I would enjoy these cookies with a coffee made by Donna herself at the The Coffee Bean (scrap that, if I lived closer to The Coffee Bean, I would probably be putting my baking on hold and ordering a coffee and cookie...).

Donna's cafe-style triple choc cookies
125g butter, chopped
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup self raising flour
1 tsp bi carb soda
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup milk choc bits
1/2 cup white choc bits
1/2 cup dark choc bits

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Beat butter, vanilla, sugar and egg. Don't over beat. Stir in sifted dry ingredients (this takes awhile as it seems very dry at first) then choc bits. Tablespoon mix onto tray allowing 5cm between each. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Stand on tray for 5 minutes before cooling on wire rack.

Simple and delicious! My only tip is not to be tempted to keep cooking for too long. They will seem a little undercooked at first but you won't get that wonderful soft centre if you return them to the oven.