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Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

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Camp Aite Breagh Chocolate Chip Cookies

Published on July 9, 2013 β€’ Last updated November 29, 2015 by Elizabeth Atia
chocolate-chip-cookies

Just imagine you are ten years old.

You wake up in the morning and unzip your sleeping bag. The sun is streaming through the window and you can hear birds chirping outside. You’ve been asleep on a top bunk (if you were one of the lucky early arrivers – top bunks were prime locations!) in a wooden cabin in the forest in rural east-coast Canada. A dozen or so of your peers whom you’ve formed immediate friendships with are also slowly waking from their slumber.

orangedale-pierYou quickly put on your swimming suit and join the more enthusiastic members of your cabin for a quick dip in the cold Bras d’Or lake: the morning rip and dip, only for the bravest of the brave!

After a quick shower under an ice cold outdoor tap and a towel dry you queue with five other cabin groups to enter the Dining Hall for breakfast, the anticipation of a whole day’s activities ahead of you. The sun is getting hotter. It’s pushing 30 degrees C already. You can hear the noise of hundreds of crickets in the tall grass. A bald eagle soars silently overhead.

After breakfast come the obligatory chores. There’s a rota for each day where cabin members have to help clear up and mop the dining hall, tidy up their cabins, clear up the grounds or mop the outhouses (kybos, as they were known, and if you misbehaved you were threatened that you’d have to clean the kybo with your toothbrush. No one ever misbehaved as the threat was too terrifying, those kybos smelled awful!).

Then came playtime: a whole day filled with activities including outdoor games, treasure hunts (did you ever find the four-leafed clover? They grew behind the kitchen!), canoeing trips, fishing for perch off the end of the pier in the village (occasionally catching an eel!), swimming in the lake trying to avoid the stinging red jelly fish, crafts, hiking, ropes obstacle courses in the trees, zip lining across the dreaded swamp monster bog deep in the forest (the inspiration for many camp-aitebreagha terrifying insomnia-inducing ghost story!) and developing friendships you felt were going to last a lifetime.

A break for lunch would find you all gathered at your cabin tables in the Dining Hall competing to see which cabin could sing the loudest.

“There ain’t no flies on us! There ain’t no flies on us! There may be flies on some of you guys but there ain’t no flies on us!”

The wooden floor reverberated with the thunderous sound. You left the tables energized to head back outside and continue your day of adventure under the baking sun.

When it started to get dark after dinner, the fireflies would come out; little fairy-like orbs floating in the darkness, illuminating their paths forward with their inbuilt lanterns. Β You’d head out into the forest with your friends, settling yourselves on log benches surrounding a bonfire pit. One of the counsellors would light the fire, a massive, roaring, living beast of a thing, and you’d all sing traditional camp fire songs wishing the night would never end.

marshmallows

As the camp fire embers died you’d trudge back to the dining hall for snack, exhausted but content. You were given a freshly baked cookie the size of your hand and a cold glass of milk before zipping yourself back up in your sleeping bag to recharge for another adventure the next day.

The chocolate chip cookie recipe below is the recipe for one of those cookies you ate.

I know.

I was that ten year old.

I attended a week long children’s summer camp at Camp Aite Breagh in Orangedale, Cape Breton every summer from the age of seven until fifteen. I worked there as assistant cook when I was seventeen and eighteen and this recipe was given to me by the head cook. I used to bake these cookies for the children, doubling the recipe and scooping the mixture with an ice cream scoop onto industrial sized baking trays to make chewy chocolate chip cookies the size of your hand.

This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. I promise. You have to use white vegetable fat though, do not use butter. The consistency isn’t right if the recipe is made with butter.

Now, go and make some cookies and pretend you are ten again. πŸ™‚

cape-breton-island

Camp Aite Breagh Chocolate Chip Cookies
by Elizabeth
A delicious and chewy chocolate chip cookie reminiscent of childhood summer adventures.
Ingredients
  • 205 grams white vegetable shortening
  • 225 grams granulated sugar
  • 100 grams light brown muscovado sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 325 grams plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 250 grams plain or milk chocolate chips
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 180 C/ 350 F
2. Cream together vegetable fat and sugars until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until very well combined.
4. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl.
5. Add dry ingredients to the wet and stir, using a wooden spoon, until combined.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips until well incorporated.
7. Using your fingers, pinch off pieces of dough about the size of a walnut and gently roll into balls.
8. Place on a greased baking tray (I prefer a silicone mat) and bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden.
9. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely (if you can wait that long!). Cookies freeze well.
Details

Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 40 mins Total time: 1 hour Yield: 4 dozen

When I worked at the camp in my late teens I’d walk the long dirt road from my home to the camp in the morning, which followed along the side of the lake. First thing in the morning the water was warmer than the air and a mist, like steam, used to come off it. I would quite often see a lone heron in this mist and I used to look forward to seeing it each morning, and imagine it was saying good morning. Β They’re such beautiful, magical creatures, wouldn’t you agree?

heron

I am sharing this recipe (and story!) with Javelin Warrior’s Made with Love Mondays made from scratch recipe round-up. His round-up includes recipes which are free from artificial ingredients. This recipe does include refined white vegetable fat, but I use Cookeen here in the UK which is free from hydrogenated vegetable oil (so it says on the package anyway!) and his restricted ingredients list says refined oils are ok!

Made with Love Mondays, hosted by Javelin Warrior
Category: Chocolate, Cookies, Recipe

About Elizabeth Atia

Daydream adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Calls Shetland home.

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Comments

  1. Michelle

    July 20, 2016 at 7:38 pm

    I loved going to this camp as a child with my mom she cooked there for years and my aunt Marry cooked there before her. loved your story

    Reply
  2. Rachel Hirst

    January 13, 2015 at 12:31 pm

    summer camp looks like such a great adventure, wish they had more here. The chocolate Chewy cookies look amazing and great for my son with a glass of milk at bedtime reading his book.

    Reply
  3. Jamie fricker

    October 20, 2014 at 11:35 am

    That was a woderful discreption Elisabeth. Playing in the big feild and woods shaped many if us. Thanks for the memories. Hope all is well with you these days.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      October 20, 2014 at 12:25 pm

      I recognize your name! πŸ˜€ Yes, all is well these days, and I hope it is with you too! I miss those warm summers adventuring in the fields and forest.

      Reply
  4. Janelle

    August 2, 2014 at 3:54 am

    I have to say that I remember this camp it was the best two summers I had when I was 15 & 16…..it was fun and I still remember some of the camp friends I had that me for sharing this memory one of my favorites….I stumbled across this just searching for this camp to see if they still had it

    Reply
  5. Ben Harnish

    July 20, 2014 at 8:04 am

    Thank you so much for posting this! I worked at camp Aite Breagh for 2 summers and they were possibly the best two summers of my life and formative for what I am doing now, being a teacher. Seeing the photos really brings back memories (about the cookies as well!). Thanks so much for reminding me of such a magical place! I will definitely be trying out the recipe!

    Reply
  6. Sylvia young

    July 18, 2014 at 6:49 pm

    I found your blog by accident looking to see if Camp Aite Breagh still did camps. I went their as a child as well and your post made me cry, happy tears of course remembering my days there. So much love, so many memories. I am so excited to make these cookies!

    Reply
  7. Caroline Taylor

    August 12, 2013 at 8:29 pm

    Lovely memories, these cookies sound so tempting. I’ve never made cookies before so I think it’s about time I tried!

    Reply
  8. Jacqueline Meldrum

    July 10, 2013 at 7:20 am

    I have to say that is a whole other world for me. but I do want those cookies πŸ™‚

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      July 11, 2013 at 9:11 am

      It was just like you see in those north american films πŸ™‚

      Reply
  9. Javelin Warrior

    July 9, 2013 at 9:18 pm

    I’ve never been to summer camp – the closest I got was watching Camp Nowhere a long time ago! But I think I’d have really enjoyed it as I love the outdoors and camping πŸ™‚ These chocolate chip cookies sound delicious and it is amazing the difference between shortening and butter…

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      July 11, 2013 at 9:10 am

      Summer camp was one of the best things I ever did as a child. I really do think it shaped the way I am as an adult! It certainly is quite remarkable the difference in the final result of a baked good when using butter vs shortening. I prefer butter, usually, but this recipe is an exception.

      Reply
  10. Anonymous

    July 9, 2013 at 2:03 pm

    Great story and looks like a great recipe, Elizabeth. I remember when you were around 10 years old, haha. πŸ™‚ Enjoying your site!

    – Jesslyn Fraser

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      July 9, 2013 at 2:49 pm

      Aww, thanks Jesslyn! It’s hard to believe that was sooooo very long ago! Over a quarter of a century! I don’t feel that old! πŸ™‚

      Reply

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About Elizabeth

Adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Loves bikes. Calls Shetland home. Read More…

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“Every day is another chance to get stronger, to eat better, to live healthier, and to be the best version of you.”

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