Easy chocolate biscuits

Try this basic recipe for fail-safe biscuits every time. Make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, or adapt it to include nuts, fruit or your favourite sweets

Prep:25 mins
Cook:15 mins

Easy

Nutrition per serving

kcal 243
fat 12g
saturates 7g
carbs 29g
sugars 18g
fibre 1g
protein 4g
salt 0.35g

Ingredients

250g butter, softened
350g light soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
350g self-raising flour
100g cocoa powder
200g chocolate chipsor chopped chocolate chunks, or 400g for optional dipping (choose your favourite type)

Tip

Add your favourite bits

Use the easy recipe as a blueprint for adding any of your favourite biscuit bits. Any chopped nuts or bits of toffee, honeycomb or chopped dried fruit would work well.

Give your biscuits a 'Florentine’ finish

After dipping you can give the biscuits a ‘Florentine’ finish by scattering the wet warm chocolate with flaked almonds or chopped pistachios or bits of dried fruit.

Method

Beat the butter and sugar together with an optional pinch of sea salt in a bowl until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift over the flour and cocoa powder and beat into the butter mix, then fold through the chocolate chips. The mix can be made up to 2 days ahead and chilled or frozen for a month, or used straight away.
To bake, heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. If the mix is at room temperature, place evenly spaced spoonfuls on parchment-lined baking sheets, allowing 2 tbsp for each cookie. If the mix is fridge cold, you can roll it into 40g balls before baking. The balls can be frozen and the biscuits baked from frozen, but they’ll need a few minutes more. Bake for 12-15 mins until spread out and crusty around the outside. Leave to cool slightly and enjoy warm, or leave to cool completely and eat cold. The biscuits will keep in a tin for three days.
As an optional extra, the biscuits can be dipped in chocolate. To do this, melt your chosen type of chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave. Leave to cool a little, then dip half of each biscuit in the chocolate and leave them on parchment-lined trays somewhere cool to set. Again, the dipped biscuits will keep for up to three days in a tin or lidded plastic container.