Hannah – this is all your fault. My flatmate of three years, our first interaction consisted of me nerding out over the pasta machine she had carried in her suitcase, very carefully, to our flat in halls. She got excited over the miso paste on my fridge shelf and, through our shared love of eating well and drinking good coffee, it’s little surprise that we ended up as friends.

“She’d have batter ready for when she really, desperately, needed a cookie”

After living with her for such a large amount of time, we inevitably passed on habits to each other. One of those habits I acquired from her was baking a giant batch of chocolate chip cookies. In her first year, I’d catch her making a bucket of cookies. She’d whip ingredients together with a hand-held electric mixer; she’d basically make the dough half chocolate; and she’d sneak bites of the raw cookie dough. She’d leave the batter on her fridge shelf for times when she really, desperately, needed a cookie. But she often also extended the privilege of having a freshly-baked cookie to us.

University is hard, but the small gesture of a hug-in-a-bite made it much more bearable. Once I moved away, leaving behind the small flat and university town we shared, I started making my own cookies. I think the chocolate chip cookie has become a way to remind myself of Hannah’s willingness to give generously, to make the people around her feel good, great, and loved. But it’s also a reminder to be good to the people around me, to love freely, to share a small piece of niceness to make someone’s day exponentially better. So, thank you, Hannah, for teaching me all this.

“Cookies remind me of giving generously, to make the people feel good, great, and loved”

The recipe below is not Hannah’s – it’s one I made in my former flat in Edinburgh, when the heat of last summer seeped through our north-facing windows, making working from home really, truly impossible. But a lot of the methods she used, I’ve adopted. Some tips:

1) Whip your butter and sugar together for a long amount of time, five to ten minutes, until it turns pale blonde. Incorporating that much air doesn’t make your cookies too light, like a cake; it makes them soft, crumbly, and chewy.

2) Use a mix of bread and plain flour, something like a 20:80 ratio. Bread flour is higher in protein, so if you’re wanting chewier cookies, whisk some in.

3) Let the cookies solidify before you bake them. This helps to hold their shape and deepen their flavour. This sounds like a faff, but I like to use this opportunity to portion them out. Some go into the fridge, then in the freezer in a bag, once they’re solid. That way, I have excellent cookies for whenever I, or another friend, need one.

Recipe:

325g browned butter, chilled until solid but spreadable

112g white sugar

112g dark muscovado sugar

10g salt

2tsp instant coffee powder

1tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

260g plain flour

65g bread flour

3g baking soda

1tsp cinnamon

2 bars of dark chocolate

Optional: flaky Maldon’s salt

Method:

1. Start by browning your butter in a pot until it smells nutty and is freckled with small, brown bits – that’s caramelised milk solids. Let it solidify; you can do this quickly by sticking it in a bowl in the freezer, and stirring it through every five minutes or so until it’s solidified, but still soft enough to whip.
2. Whilst the butter cools, chop up your chocolate bars into chunks. Irregular pieces are good. Separately, measure out your flours, baking soda, and cinnamon, whisking together to combine. Set aside.
3. Whisk the spreadable brown butter together with your sugars, salt, vanilla extract, and coffee powder until pale, light, and fluffy. Add in your eggs, one at a time, until combined. Don’t worry if the mixture scrambles; it’ll come together once you add in the flour.
4. Add in the flour; you don’t have to be too gentle when whisking it together, but don’t overdo it - whisk only until there are no dry lumps. Fold in the chocolate.
5. Portion the cookies into 1-2 tbsp balls, depending on how large you want them, then place in the fridge for at least an hour until hardened. After they’ve hardened, you can either freeze them for future bad days, or bake them off in an oven preheated to 200℃ for 12 minutes. Serve warm, sprinkled with flaky salt. If feeding to others, you must also give them a hug (with their consent).