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Proceed to the kitchen and turn the oven to 170°C fan. Conventional 190°C. Gas mark 5.

Warm chocolate chip cookies in 38 minutes If the oven goes on now

Turning the oven on commits you to nothing. Decide the rest while it heats.

Chocolate chip cookies

A thin golden rim that snaps. A soft, chewy middle that bends before it breaks. Pools of dark chocolate on top, still liquid if you are quick.

About two minutes before the timer ends, the kitchen starts to smell of toffee and hot chocolate. Anyone else at home tends to find a reason to walk past.

First warm cookie in 38 minutes, 17 of them work. The first time you make them, allow five or ten minutes more. One bowl, and a jug for the butter. No mixer. No softened butter. No chilling.

Makes

6 16 32

Measured in

Grams and °C Cups and °F

Ingredients

Equipment, and what to use instead

Method

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Ingredients, for 16

210 g (1 2/3 cups, spooned and levelled) Plain flour (US: All-purpose flour)
130 g (9 tbsp (1 stick + 1 tbsp)) Butter, unsalted or salted
135 g (½ cup + 2 tbsp, packed) Light brown soft sugar (US: Light brown sugar)
65 g (1/3 cup) White sugar, caster or granulated (US: Granulated sugar)
1 medium egg (1 large egg) Egg, medium (US: Egg, large)
2 tsp (2 tsp) Vanilla extract
½ tsp (½ tsp) Bicarbonate of soda (US: Baking soda)
½ tsp (½ tsp) Fine salt (US: Fine salt (table salt))
200 g (two 100 g bars) (7 oz (two 3½ oz bars, or 1¾ baking bars of 4 oz)) Dark chocolate bar, 50 to 70% cocoa (US: Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate bar, 50 to 70% cacao)

Method

Turn the oven on. Take out anything stored in the oven and check there is a shelf in the middle, then turn it on to 170°C fan (190°C conventional, gas mark 5), or 375°F. Line a baking tray with a sheet of baking paper cut to fit, with none hanging over the edge, and leave it out on the worktop. Look for: The oven is on and climbing, the shelf is in the middle, and the lined tray is cold and waiting. Most ovens show a light while they heat, which goes out when they are ready.
Melt the butter, only just. Measure the butter, cut it into cubes and melt it in a jug or small bowl in the microwave, with a saucer on top, in bursts of ten to twenty seconds, or in a small pan over the lowest heat. Stop while a few soft lumps remain, then stir until they vanish. Look for: Creamy, opaque and pale yellow, with no steam; the last lumps take a few stirs to melt away. If it has gone clear, or is bubbling or spitting, it is too hot: leave it to stand for five minutes, measuring the sugars meanwhile, before you pour it.
Measure the sugars into the bowl. Measure the light brown sugar and the white sugar into your mixing bowl. On scales, stand the bowl on them and press zero first, then press zero again between the two sugars. Crush any hard lumps with the back of a spoon. Look for: A heap of sugar with no lump bigger than a pea.
Whisk butter into the sugars. Pour the butter over the sugars, scraping out the jug or pan, and whisk for about half a minute. Look for: It looks like wet sand, a little oily at the edge, and smells of toffee. The bowl feels cool or barely warm under your palm, never hot. If it does feel hot, stand it in a sink of cold water and stir for two or three minutes.
Whisk in egg and vanilla. Crack the egg or eggs into a mug, where any shell is easy to fish out; for the small batch, beat the egg with a fork and measure out the amount given. Add the egg and the vanilla to the bowl. Whisk hard for a full minute. Look for: It turns from grainy and oily to smooth, thick and glossy, like caramel sauce, and a shade paler. No slick of butter is left round the edge, and the whisk leaves a trail that lasts a second.
Whisk in bicarb and salt. If your butter is salted, use only half the salt. Sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and the salt evenly over the surface, rubbing any lumps between your fingers. Whisk for ten seconds. Look for: No white specks on the surface or in the mixture.
Fold in the flour. Tap the whisk clean on the rim of the bowl and lift it out, then add the flour: on scales, press zero first and spoon it in rather than pouring. Fold with a spatula or spoon by cutting down through the middle and scraping round the bottom of the bowl, and stop as soon as no dry flour shows. Look for: A soft, shiny, sticky dough, like thick peanut butter, that feels no warmer than your hand. Check the very bottom of the bowl for a hidden pocket of flour.
Chop the chocolate. Chop the chocolate into uneven pieces, from chunks the size of a thumbnail down to crumbs. Set aside about a quarter, choosing the best-looking chunks, for the tops. Look for: A pile of chunks, splinters and dust, and a smaller pile of handsome pieces kept back.
Fold in the chocolate. Scrape the chopped chocolate into the bowl, dust and all but not the pieces you set aside, and fold it through with a few strokes. Look for: The chunks keep their sharp edges. Dark flecks and thin streaks from the dust are what you want. If the chunks themselves go soft and the whole dough turns muddy brown, it is too warm: stop stirring and put the bowl in the fridge for the stand.
Let the dough stand. Leave the bowl on the worktop for five minutes. Wash up while you wait. Look for: The surface has gone from glossy to satin, the dough feels like soft fudge, and a spoonful holds a mound; if it slumps, put the bowl in the fridge for ten minutes. The oven is ready when its thermostat light goes out, or when it beeps or the display stops flashing; a gas oven with no light needs a full fifteen minutes. If it is not ready, wait for it: the dough is happy to stand a little longer.
Shape the first tray. With a spoon, scoop the dough onto the lined tray in rough, tall mounds, each 50 g, about the size of a golf ball, pushing each one off with a finger; the batch makes 16. Put 6 on a typical UK oven tray or 8 on a large US half-sheet pan, a good 6 cm (2½ in) apart, and bake one tray at a time, which makes two or three rounds. Leave them craggy rather than rolling or flattening them, and press a few pieces of the chocolate you kept back onto each, saving some for any later trays. Look for: Mounds about as tall as they are wide, well apart, each with a few pieces of chocolate showing. To weigh the first one, stand the bowl of dough on the scales, press zero and scoop until the display shows the portion weight as a minus figure; then match the rest by eye.
Bake, and trust the timer. Once the oven is up to temperature, slide the tray onto the middle shelf and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, keeping the door shut until the shorter time is up. With oven gloves on, take the tray out when the rims are golden and set but the middles are still pale, puffed and look a minute short of done. Look for: A golden-brown rim about a finger's width across that looks dry and set; a paler, puffed middle with moist-looking cracks; a strong smell of toffee and chocolate. If the whole surface is still wet and shiny, give it one more minute.
Leave them on the tray. Keeping the oven gloves on, put the tray on a wooden board, a trivet or the cold hob (US: stovetop), never straight onto the worktop, and shut the oven door. If that was your last tray, turn the oven off. Leave the cookies where they are for five minutes. Look for: They sink and wrinkle in the first couple of minutes. After five, a cookie slides onto a spatula in one piece.
Eat one, bake the rest. Lift the cookies onto a rack or a cool plate with a fish slice or thin spatula, and eat the first one now, while it is warm and the chocolate is still liquid. If there is dough left, slide the paper off, cool the empty tray under the cold tap, dry it and line it again, then shape and bake the next round as before. Once the last tray is out, check that the oven is off. Look for: The cookies are off the tray in a single layer, and the tray has been under the tap and is cold before any dough goes on it. The same sheet of baking paper will do for every round.

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Chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients

Method

Before you start

When they are done

Keeping them

Not now

Later, with a time on it

Your task may now resume.

Your away message

Chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients

Method

Before you start

When they are done

Keeping them

Not now

Later, with a time on it

More about the recipe