Fairtrade Brazil Nut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy New Year!

I have not written for a few weeks because of all the Christmas related rush and also because I suffered a minor concussion in a freak accident in the park (me being the freak)... which kept me away from my laptop.

Anyway, I'm back and now that all the lovely Christmas -overindulging, buying way too much stuff you don't need and generally 'treating' yourself and everyone you know-  period has passed, I started to think about what recipe I wanted to try next,  and I guess like everyone in January, I considered for a minute looking for some kind of 'healthy' recipe...but then I looked outside (cold, wet, dark and rainy... again!) and quickly came to my senses! there is no way I can deal with winter in the UK without something naughty to compensate for the lack of endorphins my body is suffering by not seeing the sun... ever....and so, for all of you rebels out there who are also resisting the urge to diet I selected a really naughty recipe that my husband has been requesting for a while... Fairtrade Brazil Nut and chocolate chip cookies (American style... big and gooey and yes... completely unhealthy!).

But before I get to the recipe itself, I wanted to just say a little bit about about my 'star ingredient':  Brazil Nuts. These delicious nuts only grow in the 'amazing' Amazon region (I'm sure the word amazing must come from Amazon!) mainly in Brazil and in the north of Bolivia... in the tallest and most majestic trees one can imagine. They are not 'cultivated' like most Fairtrade products and instead grow wild in the forest and are gathered by producers who often risk their lives going deep into the jungle to collect them. Fairtrade is incredible and transformative in many ways for many producers and  countries, but for me, Fairtrade Brazil Nuts represent an extra special success story that has the added benefit of having offered people from the region an alternative to cutting down the forest in order to obtain an income. I was lucky enough to visit the region a couple of times and it was incredible to fly into Cobija, in the north of Bolivia, and to see the devastation on the Brazil side of the border, where so much of the forest has been cut down in order to introduce bio fuels and/or cattle, and to hear from experts on the ground that once that forest has been cut... it will NEVER recover and grow in the same way again. Especially the Brazil Nut trees, which in many cases are hundreds of years old. The fact that there is an international fair market for Brazil Nuts has had a direct effect on the preservation of this incredible forest... and that really  makes me feel like buying lots more bags of stuff and  to feel less guilty about the naughty cookies I baked and ate!

Ingredients:
250g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
170g unsalted butter, melted
200g dark brown soft sugar
100g Fairtrade caster sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
150g Fairtrade Dark Chocolate

150g Fairtrade White Chocolate
200g Fairtrade Brazil Nuts

Method: 
1) Sift together the flour, bicarb and salt; set aside.
2) In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
 3) Chop the nuts and chocolate 

4) Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts by hand using a wooden spoon.
5) Let the dough rest. I read in many recipes that it's great to 'age the dough' so I actually left it in the fridge overnight.
6) Drop cookie dough onto the prepared baking trays, with each cookie around 2 tablespoon of dough.  Do not flatten the dough. Keep cookies apart since they will grow.
7) Pre-heat the oven to 170C and then bake for around 12  minutes until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

                           Voila!


The Verdict:

AMAZING. I will definitely will make them again. Next time I will probably not use white chocolate, since it didn't really add much and made them a bit to sweet for me... and might add some more nuts. TRY THEM, they are super easy and you will never crave another cookie so bad...

Just a few photos of my visits to the Amazon below...

Funky Fairtrade sugar meringues

This week I chose Fairtrade sugar as my main ingredient (hence the sugar post a few  days ago) and it was partly because I caught a few minutes of a Paul Hollywood (baking god in the UK) programme where he introduced the 'Meringue Girls', who are (very successfully), making meringues 'cool' and becoming quite famous in the UK... here is a link to their website: http://www.meringuegirls.co.uk/the-meringues

Anyway, what really struck me, was their technique to colour the inside of the piping bag in order to create the most beautiful coloured meringues... and so I decided to give it a go... here goes my experiment:

Ingredients:
- 3 egg whites
- 175 grs. of Fairtrade caster sugar
- pink and purple food colouring gel
(cream and berries optional!)




                                                      Method:

1) Heat the sugar under the grill until it is just about to start melting (starts to turn slightly brown). This is also part of the Meringue Girl's technique.

2) Beat the eggs (in a clean and dry bowl) until partly stiff.

3) Add the sugar, a spoonful at the time, and beat again until very stiff.

4) Prepare your piping bag, by turning it inside out and colouring lines with a small paint brush (I used pink and purple food colouring gel)

 5) Insert the beaten egg-whites and start piping!











6) Bake in the oven at 120C for 1 1/2 hrs, until they can be lifted easily from the bottom without sticking. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and leave them in there until cold.  Enjoy!

The verdict:

Well, they were actually quite easy and fun to make... and they offer so many 'funky' possibilities (no wonder the 'meringue girls' are doing so well) and certainly deliver on the 'Wow factor'... but, for me, the problem is that meringues are simply too sweet.... and after 1-2 small  bites, I just didn't want any more...
In the summer we often have them with Greek yogurt and fresh berries... and that works well... so perhaps I will try them again then... but I don't think they delivered what I was hoping for in terms of a winter dessert!

In support of all visionaries out there!

Now, I know that this blog is about Fairtrade Food... but I just have to include a little paragraph about this company that I am in awe of ... it's called Visionary Soap, and it sells a wide range of Fairtrade bath & body care products manufactured here in the UK.

All their products are handmade using natural ingredients from producer groups in Palestine, India, Sri Lanka, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and South Africa and they use a very high percentage of Fairtrade ingredients in all of their formulations, which is fantastic already, but what makes them even more special is that all their products are made through a job training programme within marginalised communities in southern England ,offering opportunities to individuals that are in need here in the UK too. WOW!

They are now trying to develop a Fairtrade certified, organic liquid soap range using coconut oil from Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK) in India (remember them from my cashew posts?), and need out help! they are trying to raise £10,000 to fund the first production run, through a crowd-funding campaign.

Please check out the details of how you can get involved, and also their website where there is much more information!

https://www.buzzbnk.org/ProjectDetails.aspx?projectId=129

http://visionarysoap.co.uk/

We need more of this type of visionaries in this world, and I for one have contributed my bit... hope they can achieve this, and MUCH MORE!!!