This month in the Secret Recipe Club, we were assigned My Judy the Foodie. This is a really fun blog run by Shari and named after her Mom Judy who was an excellent cook and hostess. There a huge amount of recipes, some are Judy’s originals and others are ones that Shari has come up with by herself. Each recipe has a little insight into Shari’s life or a memory of Judy which I really enjoyed. Shari speaks really touchingly of her mother and I defy anyone to read about her without tearing up a little.

I wanted to make one of Judy’s recipes and I wanted to make something really sweet and indulgent. Luckily there were lots to choose from! I chose earthquake cookies, partly because I loved the name (who doesn’t!) and also because the ingredients list reads like a dream… I also love the make-ahead approach, to have cookie dough sitting in my fridge or freezer and then just decide I want a batch of cookies? Yes please!

This makes plenty of cookies! So far I have made 20 large cookies and still have about half the cookie dough left. I tend to make cookies one small batch at a time because otherwise I would eat them all at once!

Ingredients for Judy’s Earthquake Cookies:

• 8 tablespoons or 115g butter
• 4 squares chocolate (I wasn’t sure how big the squares Judy used were so I used 8 small squares I had)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• a lot of icing/confectioners sugar

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F. Butter or line a baking tray and put the icing sugar into a large bowl. Take the cookie dough out of the fridge. Mine looked like a thick fudge after it’s time in the fridge! Take a teaspoon and spoon out this amount, roll into a little ball and then roll around in the icing sugar until it is completely covered. Place these onto the sheet and then cook for around 10 minutes. Leave for a few minutes and then remove from the tray. Leave to cool on a wire rack and try to resist eating a cookie warm from the tray….