This basic cookie recipe can be adapted to create your mega dream cookie. If you want to try out a few new ideas, make the basic recipe and split it into four to make a few cookies in each flavour.
Once cooled, you can decorate these cookies with icing or dip into melted white or dark chocolate and then nuts, coconut or sprinkles, or try one of the recipe variations below.
Basic Cookie Recipe
This makes about 12-24 cookies depending on size.
Ingredients:
- 125g butter (4 ounces)
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon of vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 3/4 cups self-raising flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup mix-ins (see below…)
Recipe:
- Cream butter and sugar — beat like crazy by hand or with a mixer
- Add vanilla and egg stirring well
- Add flour and salt until the mixture looks like a heap of lumps and crumbs
- Stir in mix-ins
- Drop spoonfuls of mixture onto a non-stick tray. If you’ve gone crazy on mix-ins (like adding a whole block of chocolate), mold each cookie by hand and place onto a cooking tray
- Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 10-15 minutes
Note: In New Zealand we tend to have our cookies crunchy and brown so a cooking time of 15 minutes is about right. But for a softer, American-style cookie, reduce the heat by 20 degrees and the time by five minutes.
Variations:
Keep a roll of frozen cookie dough on stand-by for instant gifting
I make a large batch of cookie dough every couple of months, then roll it into a long sausage and freeze it. If I'm invited... Read more
Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Swap half the white sugar for brown sugar
- Add chocolate chips as mix-ins
Double Chocolate Cookies
- Remove 2 tablespoons of flour and add 2 tablespoons of cocoa
- Add white chocolate chips as mix-ins
Insanely Chocolate Cookies
- Chop up a family block of chocolate into rough chunks and add to the mixture
- Try a block of white chocolate and macadamia, dark chocolate and almond, or Whittakers Peanut Butter block
Peanut Cookies
- Swap half the white sugar for brown sugar
- Add peanuts as mix ins with 2 tablespoons of peanut butter
Honey, Cumin, and Rosewater Cookies
- Add 1 tablespoon of honey
- Swap vanilla for 1 tablespoon of rosewater
- Sprinkle cumin seeds over cookies before baking
Chocolate Almond Cookies
- Remove two tablespoons of flour and add two tablespoons of cocoa
- Swap vanilla essence for almond essence
- Top biscuits with raw almonds before baking
- Dip the base in chocolate after cookies are cooled
Oat and Raisin Cookies
- Swap the white sugar for brown sugar
- Add half a cup of rolled oats and half a cup of raisins
- Add 1 teaspoon of mixed spice and half a teaspoon of cinnamon
Other Cookie Ideas to Try:
- ½ cup of macadamia nuts and ½ cup of white chocolate
- 1 cup of mini M&Ms or peanut M&Ms
- 1 cup of chopped mixed roasted nuts such as Brazils, almonds, hazelnuts and pecans
Get creative and share the love — make a batch for your friends or workmates today!
Brown 3/4 of the butter, then mix in remaining butter off heat till melted before creaming with sugar. Adds delicious toffee flavor!
Ooooh for the holidays I bet a little orange zest, some dried cranberries, and some white chocolate would dynamite these!
“Chop up a family block of chocolate into rough chunks and add to the mixture.”
A family block is not a unit of chocolate we have here in the US; about how much chocolate is that by weight? (I know you can just add however much chocolate looks right to these sorts of cookies, but I was curious how much your recipe was calling for.)
The dominant brand of chocolate in NZ and Australia is Cadbury’s which comes in “family” sized blocks; depending on flavor and location of production it’s weight is anywhere between 175g or 220g.
Countries that have Cadbury’s as their dominant brand of chocolate are so lucky! Thanks for letting us know what the size was for those of us in countries that are not so fortunate. (We do get a few Cadbury products in the US, but not nearly enough.)
And they’re made by Hershey’s over here, and so are pretty tragic compared to other countries’ Cadbury. Siiigh.
The basic recipe calls for 1 cup of mix-ins, I’m guessing you’d need a cup of chopped chocolate. 1 cup of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate weighs 6oz or 175g which sounds like quite a big bar which is probably what the family size bit is about.
I mean to add this handy cup/weight conversion chart to that previous post, it lists lots of food items and tell you how much (in oz) a cup of them weighs :
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipe/master-weight-chart.html
I bake… sometimes. I make a few things reasonably well (chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, spritz cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate cake, white cake) and that’s it. After that, I just thoroughly enjoy when OTHER people bake.
But this. THIS has inspired me. I may just choose to bake… for fun.
…And now I know what I’m doing this weekend.
Dried figs or dates + walnuts also make a very nice mix-in for cookies!
The honey and cumin variety seems very intriguing!
I have baked matcha tea and white chocolate chips cookies a couple of times, it is an awesome mix. Just add a cup of chopped white chocolate and two teaspoons of matcha, and yum.
I love seeing recipes written with grams! 🙂
I thought I’d write in some subs:
– To make “regular” flour into “self-rising” take 1 cup of flour and add 1 1/2 tsp baking POWDER and 1/2 tsp salt.
– I’d make this recipe with spelt flour (I’m wheat intolerant, not gluten intolerant), and to do that I’d add in the baking powder and salt. And I’d probably add an extra few tablespoons to 1/4 cup of spelt flour.
– To make this gluten free I’d use a gluten free flour mix (adding baking powder and salt), OR I’d get white rice flour (less expensive then GF mix) and add the baking powder and salt. (If you do a lot of gluten free baking I’d recommend getting xantham gum. It’s pricey but worth it if you are gluten intolerant and like to bake.)
– I’m also pro skipping the “regular” salt and using the same amount of kosher salt or some other large size salt, especially in chocolate chip/chocolate chunk cookies.
Oh man. I’m making Whittaker’s Peanut Butter cookies. I freaking LOVE that chocolate. It’s the only one I can’t stop myself from eating the whole block of.
very excited by the honey, cumin and rosewater version! out of rosewater but will stock up now to make these!
I made these at the weekend and they were great! I used choc chips, ground toasted almonds and dried orange zest. I also followed another tip from here and made extra to put in the freezer. Thanks for a great recipe.