Full of flavour, these crispy two-tone cookies are so good, I really wonder why I don’t make these more often.

Because it was raining today, I thought I’d bake some cookies to cheer up – and try a two-tone, chocolate ginger variant of the standard choc-chip cookie. I like mine crisp. I made two (very small) batches, one with the cookie dough rolled into balls that spread out while baking, and the other in pre-formed flattened shapes, to see what would happen that way. Well, *both* are good. The ball shape is still a bit chewy inside, the flat ones spread out a bit further, and became nice and crisp. Note to self: I definitely need a larger oven. More! More!

Method

Cut the butter into small chunks, and quickly combine with the sugars and egg yolk, using a fork. Then mix into a creamy white consisteny with a mixer. Add vanilla essence and ground ginger. Add the flour and keep mixing until the lumps are starting to stick together. Using a mixer gives the cookies a nice airy texture.

Now divide into two batches. Add the cocoa powder and chocolate chips to one batch, and knead to distribute the cocoa evenly. Quickly shape into a sausage shape, and combine the chocolate batch with the plain one. Keep kneading to a minimum, it’s only to combine the two batches and to get a nice rough swirl effect. Leave to rest in a bowl.

Line a baking tray with baking paper and pre-heat the oven to 200C. Shape the dough in your preferred method: either as 3cm balls, that will spread while baking, or as 6cm wide, 1 cm high circles of dough, that you can roll in sugar to give the edges a nice finish. The balls will be softer inside than the flat shaped circles.

Bake in the oven for 13 to 15 minutes; better to underbake than wait too long and burn them – you can always leave them in for an extra minute if you think they’re not done yet. When done, place the hot and still soft cookies on a rack to cool and get crispy. They taste awesome, *much* better than anything from a store, imho.