American Chocolate Chip Cookies at Home: Two Kinds of Sugar, Soft Butter and Ten Minutes at 200 Degrees

Chocolate chip cookies are an American invention from the 1930s, but the word is European. "Cookie" comes from the Dutch koekje, "little cake", and Dutch settlers helped spread the tradition of small pieces of sweet dough across North America. The good news is that you need neither America nor the Netherlands to make them at home - just ten minutes of oven time and a bit of patience.

Ingredients: 350 grams of flour, 200 grams of butter, 100 grams of white sugar, 100 grams of brown sugar, 150 grams of chocolate chips, 1 egg, a pinch of salt, 1 tablespoon of baking powder and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.

Method: Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the flour, both sugars, the vanilla and the baking powder. Add the chocolate, egg, salt and butter and knead by hand. Once the dough is smooth, shape it into balls, arrange them on a tray lined with baking paper or a silicone mat, flatten them slightly and bake for about 10 minutes at 200 degrees.

The secrets that make the difference. Using two sugars is not a whim: brown sugar adds moisture and a caramel flavour, white sugar makes the edges crisp. The butter should be softened, not melted - that keeps the texture lighter. Don't knead the dough for too long, or the cookies turn hard. If you have time, leave the dough in the fridge for a few hours: the flavour gets deeper and the cookies spread better in the oven. Use good-quality chocolate and mix chips with a broken-up bar for varied texture.

Leave enough space between the balls, because they spread. The trick for those wrinkled edges: halfway through baking, or when you take the tray out, tap it lightly against the counter. And most importantly - take them out while they still look a little soft. The edges should be golden and the centre underbaked; they will firm up as they cool. The result is a cookie that is crunchy outside and soft inside, the kind that disappears faster than it bakes.