Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

Please remember that the cookie dough ideally needs to sit for a minimum of half an hour in the fridge, or 15 minutes in the freezer, before cooking. If you do not have time to do this, it is not a problem; your cookies will still be delicious but they may spread out a little bit more more when cooked.

The method is very simple. Collect all your ingredients together. Put the butter, salt and both of the sugars into a large bowl and using an electric whisk mix until fluffy. This should take 3-4 minutes.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat again with an electric whisk until thoroughly mixed.

Add the flour and baking powder to the butter mixture. Either beat with an electric whisk on the slowest speed (to avoid a cloud of flour covering your kitchen!) or mix in with a wooden spoon.

Finally fold through your chocolate chunks. N.B. Hold a few chunks back before mixing in. I often find the last cookie dough ball to be made has no or very few chocolate chunks in it. If you hold a few back you can simply mix into the final cookie.

Next divide into 26 x 30g balls of cookie dough. I am quite specific how I do this. I line a baking tray with parchment, sit it on the top of the scales and zero the scales. I can then check that each cookie weighs 30g each. I use a heaped tablespoon measure or a small ice cream scoop. The more accurate you are, the more consistent your cookies will be when cooked. I don’t worry about 2g here or there but I am quite careful. However, I should point out that my girls eye ball it when making these cookies and just use an ice cream scoop. They cannot understand why I am so pernickety. I confess theirs always turn out really well, so your choice!

Once you have divided the dough into balls, roll gently into a neater shape (the dough will be very soft at this stage) and then stick on the additional chocolate chunks. Cover with cling film and either:

refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before you cook them. If you are really in a hurry you can cook them straight away but they will spread a little bit more, OR

if you want to freeze any now is the time. Place in the freezer on a baking parchment lined baking tray and as soon as the dough balls are solid, they can be transferred into labelled freezer bags or containers.

When you are ready to cook your cookies, place them spread out on a baking sheet – I get 4 – 5 per sheet depending on the size of the baking sheet. Cook in a preheated oven for 10 – 12 minutes or until cooked to your liking. In my oven they take exactly 11 minutes. However if you are cooking 2 trays of cookies at the same time, I cook for 6 minutes and then swap the trays over and cook for a further 6 minutes. They are cooked when they have spread out, are starting to brown on the edges and look ever so slightly underdone. They should still be soft in the middle. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.