Chocolate peppermint cookies

1. Preheat an oven to 170 degrees (fan), or equivalent. Grease and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. There are two ways to mix the dough: either use an electric hand whisk to first cream together the butter and sugar until pale. Add the peppermint essence, then sieve together the self-raising flour and cocoa powder and slowly blend them into the creamed butter and sugar. The second, quicker method, which I often use, is to treat the cookie dough ingredients (except the chocolate chips, which I add in at the end) like an all-in-one cake mix and just blitz all the ingredients in a food processor until they resemble breadcrumbs).

3. Stir in the chocolate chips and use clean hands to press the dough into balls, ensuring you distribute the chocolate chips evenly between rolled balls (add a dash of cold water if the mixture is very dry, although the heat of your hands will help to bring the dough together).

4. Measure one level tablespoonful of dough; roll dough between palms to form ping-pong-sized balls. Place on the lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, spacing cookies wide apart as they tend to spread outwards during baking. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes before baking.

5. Bake the cookies in the oven for about 10 minutes, by which time they will have spread and appear cracked all over the top.

6. Once the cookies are cooked, remove them from the oven. Since they will still be soft, allow them to sit for two minutes to harden up slightly, before using a palette knife to carefully lift them up and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Variation

For a different flavour to peppermint, add orange zest to the cookie.