Chocolate Crinkle Cookies + my little break from the internet

Food blogger Izy Hossack makes Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Cookies are always my preferred thing to bake/eat, especially around Christmas time! These chocolate crinkle cookies are a very slight riff on a recipe my mum always made when I was growing up. I haven’t had them in a while and, now that I’ve moved out, the smell of them baking makes my flat feel like a proper home.

 

I’ve had some time off of blogging and social media for a while now. I turned off push notifications for my emails and basically unintentionally banned myself from instagram. I’ve stepped back from most sponsored work too and just relied on freelance stuff/savings for my income which I realise is an incredibly privileged thing to be able to do. I’m basically only able to do that because I’ve had my parents supporting me until this year so any money I’ve made previously I’ve been able to save most of.

Food blogger Izy Hossack makes Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

The time off has provided some much needed R&R for my brain as I was getting very bogged down by *everything* and it was definitely affecting my mental health. It’s been a big year what with graduation, moving out, running a retreat in Ireland and figuring out what I actually want to do with my life! People always asked me how I managed to balance blogging and school and to be honest, it was the freedom from having all that ‘life admin’ that allowed me to do it. It was also a simpler time in terms of content production back in 2011 when social media wasn’t expected/required. The online world is a whole different ballgame now with platforms pushing for more and more original, complex content which requires so much more time commitment.

Food blogger Izy Hossack makes Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I’ve also been doing some food styling assisting work, as I’ve mentioned before. It has been SO nice to go into a kitchen and get a list of recipes to cook without me having to think about the social media side of things or recipe testing or anything. I just go onto autopilot and cook someone else’s recipe. It’s tiring being on your feet all day but the fact I can just switch off the ‘content production’ side of my brain has been very freeing! Of course it’s always interesting to cook other people’s recipes and learn tricks from the food stylist in charge, too.

Anyway, that was a long update which I thought was due if you were wondering where I’d been! But most importantly let’s talk about these cookies!! This is a basic cocoa powder cookie dough – it’s jazzed up with some cinnamon and bittersweet chocolate chunks. The balls of dough are rolled in granulated sugar to give em a sparkle and a kinda crunchy coating. They’re a bit like ginger-molasses crinkle cookies so if you like THOSE, you’ll probably like these. My mum used to make these with shortening back in the day and called them chocolate snappers! I’ve adjusted the recipe with unsalted butter here instead which provides a chewier cookie. I’ve always made these with golden syrup as it’s so easy to get in the UK but if you can’t get it, you can sub a different syrup (brown rice, agave, corn) or honey.

Happy holidays everyone!

Other Christmas cookies to bake:

Food blogger Izy Hossack makes Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

No ratings yet
Print Pin
Servings: 30 cookies

Ingredients

  • 165 g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
  • 200 g (1 cup) 200g granulated sugar, plus extra for rolling
  • 1 large egg
  • 90 g (1/4 cup) golden syrup, honey, agave syrup or brown rice syrup
  • 210 g (1 3/4 cups) plain white flour (all purpose flour)
  • 55 g (1/2 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 100 g (3.5oz) 70% cocoa chocolate (bittersweet chocolate)

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 180oC/160oC fan/350oF. Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper or non-stick liners.
  • Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until smooth. Add the egg and preferred syrup then beat again to combine fully. Stir in the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda and salt so you get a soft dough. Roughly chop the chocolate into chunks then fold into the dough.
  • Pour about 50g (1/4 cup) of extra granulated sugar into a wide, shallow bowl. Scoop heaped tablespoons of dough, roll into balls and roll in the extra granulated sugar to coat. Place on a baking sheet spaced about 5cm (2 inches) apart.
  • Bake for 10-12 minutes until the cookies have spread well and are slightly crinkled. Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes so they can set before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat the rolling and baking to use all the dough.
  • Store cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Tried this recipe?Let me know how it went! Mention @izyhossack or tag #topwithcinnamon!

10 thoughts on “Chocolate Crinkle Cookies + my little break from the internet”

  1. It’s so very hard not to get sucked in to the ever increasingly demanding online world! It’s wonderful that you took some time off and you will find that all that’s meaningful and all the people who love you and your content are still here when you return. You are doing an incredibly marvelous job and can be very proud of yourself!

    • It is isn’t it!? I didn’t even notice because it happened so gradually but it was definitely making me unhappy. That’s what I’d hoped! Thank you so much, it really means a lot to hear that 🙂

  2. I’m not sure I understand. There’s a new recipe and the post is written in past declension.
    Was that a temporary break? are you going to continue blogging? (please do!) have you figured out what you wanna do as your main profession? I’m curios!
    Also, thank you for opening up to us. I’m in the midst of working on my own food blog and reading about this makes me think about my future commitments, but I think it’s no different from the trends I’m seeing right now regarding social media – too much looking at stats, trying to trick algorithms, the constant need to be very active…

    But I also try to shift myself out from all of this by thinking of you for example – you’re actually my main source of everyday recipes and I’m so glad to see a new post from you every time that I don’t really mind if it pops only once a month, because every recipe and every photo and style coming from you is way worthier for me than a few made by other bloggers…
    So the question is also which part of that is in our minds and our need to be very professional and consistent and which part is really the readers\followers expectations. But yes, it’s way harder when sponsorships and stuff are involved – it’s hard to satisfy everyone and stay sane these days \:

    Anyway, so glad you’re back 🙂

    • Sorry for confusing you! I guess if you don’t follow me on instagram it’s not as evident when I don’t post. I mostly took time off of social media for the past month 🙂 but also kind of ignored my blog even more than usual haha. It was just a temporary break, I didn’t even plan it really, it just happened because i was properly burnt out. My plan is to definitely continue with the blog/making content and I’m planning to start introducing some fun videos here and there too. I’d love to work doing freelance recipe development, styling and photography and keep the blog stuff as it’s own separate thing. Luckily my sponsored work on here and savings from my books mean I can have infrequent freelance work and still pay the bills (for now).

      Please let me know when you start up your own blog!! I’d love to read it 🙂 Yes I think it’s a common theme at the moment that I’m seeing! Blogging used to be quite low-commitment compared to how much I feel like I ‘have’ to share nowadays. I just needed to reevaluate what I wanted the experience to be and for me, it’s about posting and not caring if it’s going to get XX number of views or likes.

      That’s really lovely to hear, I’m so glad that you feel that way about my recipes! It’s such a small thing but getting feedback like that is so valuable to me and makes any stats seem so irrelevant.
      It’s hard to strike a balance between what you can commit to and having a high quality level of posts. I’m trying to find what works for me now that I have such a variable schedule, especially with the freelance work.

      Thank you! and I’m so glad that you left such a thoughtful comment on here 🙂 Hope you have a great weekend.

      • Thank you so much! I appreciate that! I’ll definitely send you the link when it’s up and ready – maybe in the email I forgot to to send for some reason hahah about food science studies in the UK 🙂

        I’m actually following you across all those media platforms, I’m just not that present there myself haha, mainly because all of the reasons mentioned in previous comments (well, that’s half a lie since I do use FB a lot even though I really dislike the platform because there are so many professional groups and pages there and I need to keep myself quite updated, but you get the idea).
        I’ve seen all your sponsored content so I know you’re making tons of recipes for companies and I guess it’s taking its toll when you still have to be a student, a friend, a photo shooter and all that jazz.
        I’m using all the recipes from the blog, two of the books, the booklet and some of the previous ones that I kept from Instagram.
        But I’m aware to the fact that normally you’re very active there.

        Your recipes and style has an outstanding quality – I’m always feeling comfortable trying new ones knowing that the recipe will be 100% accurate and balanced and the photos are always very representative while not being too over the top. I love that.
        Honestly there are some food bloggers I kinda got tired from – they used to post once a week or once every two weeks and now they’re posting every two days and the content is so repetitive – like, more or less the same cookie recipe but only with different additions.
        It’s hard to be creative under pressure, I totally get that, but if it’s becoming less original and interesting – that’s just a bummer. I hope (even if can’t promise myself) not to get to that point in the future.

  3. I love chocolate crinkle cookies! These look so unique and chocolatey – I love these dark cracks – stunningly delicious!

  4. well, first let me thank you for this cookie recipe and also congratulate you on your “break”, I can only imagine that you weren’t too far gone to have been able to stay off of social media for as long as you did, well done and done blame you from needing a break from the social media “fishbowl”!

Comments are closed.