I threatened someone with cake the other day. I said to them 'I'll bring cake to <event>! I promise!' They promptly forgot, but let me tell you something, I never make empty cake threats. Ever. I have an extremely low cake threshold, and my friends and family need to be aware of that. It takes nothing to get me in to the butter and the eggs and the cake tins and the baking paper - whether it be a new baby, a tough day, or a friend I haven't seen in over a week, every occasion is a cake occasion.

Except for the times when I get fed up with the awkwardness of carrying a cake. Then it's cookie time.

Cookies, you guys! I've only posted one other cookie recipe on The Vine, and it's made me think that I don't make cookies anywhere near often enough, because they are a near-perfect little baked good. Give yourself ten minutes and a pat of Western Star and you can get a whole batch of cookie dough made and in the oven and delicious, not to mention they're far easier to transport than a cake, plus you don't have to cut them. Cookies are amazing and the best, and I have resolved to make more in future.

I was originally going to have a crack at the much-vaunted New York Times perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, but then I realised they expected me to somehow leave a bowl of cookie dough unmolested in the fridge overnight, plus they do that peculiarly American thing of calling for bread flour and cake flour. You guys, I'm not about to keep more than one type of flour in my kitchen, two at the most if you count wholemeal. My cookies will get the same home brand plain I use for everything else and they'll like it.

Besides, I like my cookies less sweet, more spicy. I like chewy oats, nuts, spices and dried fruit in my cookies, and while there are none in these I had people asking me if I'd added ginger or hazelnuts. This is down to one secret ingredient: treacle. Regular, old fashioned treacle, the kind your nanna used to cook with. Your treacles and your mollasseses are underrated sweeteners.  They're dark and fragrant and complex, spicy and sweet, and they make one hell of a tasty cookie. The other secret ingredient is browned butter, which also made these cookies incredibly easy to make. Browned butter is just butter that you melt over medium-low heat and allow to bubble until it is a delicate brown. It tastes nutty and delicious.

One final note - in my time making chocolate chip cookies, my preferred chip is by far the hand-chopped chocolate bar. That way you have both large, melty pieces and tiny little chocolatey shards. I also prefer Cadbury Old Gold, as it is sweeter and less intense than proper dark chocolate, but darker and tastier than milk. But that's my preference.

Okay, let's do this.

Chocolate chip & treacle cookies
Adapted from Joy the Baker. Makes ~ 18

110g butter
100g chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chips
2 heaped tbsp treacle
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup + 3 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium low heat until it foams and darkens ever so slightly, then set aside. Put the sugar and treacle in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer on low until no lumps remain - I switch to a wire whisk half way through mixing to make this easier. Pour the butter into the sugar and give it a good 5 minute whisk, partly to make sure its combined, partly to allow it to cool. Whisk in the egg, then add the flour mixture, a little at a time, mixing thoroughly with a spatula after each addition. Add the chocolate chips and spatula them in.

Give the dough a 10-15 minute spell in the fridge to firm up. I use a 1tbsp cookie scoop, basically a tiny ice cream scoop that I buy by the brace whenever I'm in the 'States, but you could just use two dessert spoons to roll balls of dough to put on baking papered trays. These guys do spread, so spread them out and only bake six per sheet. I just return the dough to the fridge while a batch is baking. Give them 8-10 minutes in the oven, removing when they look spread out and golden and a little puffy.

You really want to go for slightly underbaked with these guys to get that cookie chewiness. Cool on a wire rack. Eat until you can't move.