My favourite cookies

more gut-brain axis talk, Opso

Food news of the week:

Back from Chamonix and already diving headfirst into more cheese at Opso, so that’s today’s review below. Next, I realised how much I enjoy homemade cookies after having some subpar ones in France, so I put a recipe for my favourite ones down below, and I have fond memories selling these in Oxford pre-Covid.

Science of the week:

I think it’s important to grasp the basics of the how the gut impacts the brain, which is why we wrote this introduction to the gut-brain axis and how it all works in my second newsletter Biomes and Brains. It covers: what the gut-brain axis is, how the two interact, and how we know they are connected in the first place.

Insight of the week:

Cooking is no tradwife job, it’s a basic human skill. Not to mention it enhances the functional connectivity of the brain, since it engages all the sensory areas controlling sight, touch, smell etc. I get lazy cooking on holiday but now I’m so ready to get back into it.

Recipe of the week:

In commemoration of my week of cheese, here’s to my all-time favourite alexcrumb recipe– cream cheese-stuffed chocolate chip cookies! This was my top seller back when I sold my goodies in Oxford (and London for some time) years ago.

Cream cheese filled chocolate chip cookies (makes 4 filled cookies)

Ingredients

205g (1 2/3 cup) flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp cornflour

2 tsp salt

1 egg

5 tbsp white sugar

5 tbsp brown sugar

150g butter, room temperature

3 heaped tablespoons cream cheese (I used Philadelphia brand but any will do)

3 tbsp icing sugar

100g chocolate, chopped (I used a mix of dark and white chocolate, you can use any combination and any chocolate sort you want)