What's cooking: the Hummingbird Bakery's chocolate chunk cookies

I love baking with no particular reason or event in mind, just for the sheer delight of it, but sometimes it's quite nice to have a reason for it too.

This week I've had two; firstly a colleague leaving, and secondly, Eid.

So with this in mind, I baked up a big batch of milk and white chocolate "chunk" cookies and sugar butter cookies, to wrap up in tissue paper and present in cardboard boxes tied with ribbon (yes, I'm such a girl, but, hey, it makes me happy!).

I decided to go with a tried and tested fast-becoming family favourite - the Hummingbird Bakery cookies. I first tried these for my eldest brother's birthday, with the darkest, most pure chocolate I could find (Green & Black's); he loved them but personally it was a little too bitter for me, so I substituted dark with milk chocolate for the first batch, followed by white chocolate for the second. I've also tweaked the original recipe - I don't think it needs the extra 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate soda which the book recipe has, so I literally just throw a pinch in instead. Without the soda, the cookies remain cakey and soft.

I'm slowly testing out each recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book - I have to say, they all have far, far more sugar than any other cake or cookies recipes I've ever come across, but it's only an occasional treat after all...

Definitely don't try to crowd too many cookies onto one tray before you bake - they'll spread out into one conglomerate mass if you do. I do four per tray at a time and although this means you could end up waiting for ages for them all to be done, tray after tray, at least they're all perfectly formed.

The Hummingbird Bakery's cookies
225g unsalted butter
350g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1/s teaspoon salt
225g milk, dark or white chocolate, roughly chopped*
Baking trays, lined with baking parchment

Makes 24

Preheat the oven to 170C. Whisk the butter and sugar with a handheld electric mix until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping any unmixed ingredients down from the side of the bowl after each addition. Turn the mixer down to slow speed and beat in the vanilla extract.

Add the flour and salt and mix until a smooth dough is formed. Then stir in the chopped chocolate until evenly dispersed.

Arrange four to six equal amounts of cookie dough on each baking tray - they really do spread out something huge so make sure there's enough space between them and don't try and cram more than six on per tray (trust me). Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until they are golden brown around the edges and quite flat.

*If you are using white chocolate, keep an extra careful eye on them while baking, as white chocolate has a tendency to brown rather quickly in the oven

Don't worry if they look too pale and soft in the middle - as long as the edges are golden, the middle will go firmer and cookie-like when cooling. Leave to cool on the trays first for a few minutes before turning them out on to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Perfect cookies!

And here's what they look like all packaged up with my handmade gift tags. A pleasure to give and hopefully more so to receive also!