Flour For Chocolate Chip Cookies | Ask Nigella.com (2024)

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Chip Cookies (from KITCHEN) are made with plain (all-purpose) flour. They have a small amount of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) added but if you used self-rising flour then the cookies would spread out drastically and be very thin.

Nigella's recipes always use plain flour unless it is specifically stated that self-raising flour is needed. In her more recent books Nigella has used only plain flour and added baking powder and/or bicarbonate of soda, as just having one bag of flour saves space in the kitchen. Also self-raising flour can lose its raising ability quite quickly in a humid environment and tends to have a shorter shelf life than plain flour. To convert plain flour to self-raising, add 2 teaspoons of baking powder to 150g (1 cup) of plain flour and sift or whisk together before using.