Chocolate chip cookies

Today my friend Cathy and I decided to bake chocolate chip cookies to give to the team we have been working with for the last month and a half as a little present. They are "proper" cookies - soft and squidgy and full of chocolate chips. Again these were made minus scales so it's a miracle they turned out well (or just a good demonstration of a suitable recipe for guessing quantities for!)

You will be able to make about 25 small cookies from this batter (or fewer if you make monster ones - you might just need to cook them for a few minutes more!)

To make a batch of chocolate chip cookies you will need:
150g salted butter
125g soft brown sugar
100g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk
300g self raising flour (or 300g plain flour + 1/2 tsp baking powder)
300g chocolate chips - we used a mix of both plain and dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170C and line a few baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Melt the butter and leave to one side to cool. Weigh out the two sugars and add to this the cooled butter. Whisk the eggs and the vanilla together and pour into the sugar and butter mix, beating them all together. Add the flour and gently combine. Pour in the chocolate chips and mix through.

Use two tablespoons, one to scoop and the other to push the cookie dough onto the tray, to create balls of cookie dough. They will spread during cooking so space them out a little.

Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until they are slightly golden. They will firm up when cooling. Remove the tray from the oven and leave for a minute or so before lifting off to cool to allow them to set a little. They're definitely best when warm out of the oven while the chocolate chips are still a little gooey.

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