Basic Adaptable Cookie Dough

Method

• step 1

  Cream the butter and sugar together until they're light and fluffy.

• step 2

  Add the egg yolk and mix well. Then add the flour and salt, and vanilla extract or lemon.

• step 3

  Now comes the fun part! Add about 50g of whatever other ingredients you like! Good combinations to try are dark chocolate and orange, white chocolate and lemon, and date and pecan. Hundreds and thousands mixed into the dough are really colourful and great for kids!

• step 4

  Mix the flour and your added extras until it all comes together to form a sticky cookie dough.

• step 5

  Put the dough onto a floured work surface, and roll into a thick sausage shape. The size of the sausage depends how big you want your cookies: make it long and thin to get the most out, but they'll be smaller.

• step 6

  Wrap the sausage of cookie dough in clingfilm and leave in the freezer for at least 1 hour. While it's in there, preheat the oven to 190C (375F/Gas mark 6).

• step 7

  Take the sausage of cookie dough out of the freezer: it should be firmer and easier to cut. Use a sharp knife to slice it, as thick as you like, and put the cookie slices onto a baking sheet, spaced quite far apart. If you need to bake them in more than one batch, wrap the excess dough and put it back into the freezer so it doesn't go soft.

• step 8

  Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, then leave to cool. They're great plain, but you can spread each one with a teaspoon of coloured or flavoured icing.