Chocolate Smarties Cookies

These rich and chewy chocolate cookies are packed with colourful Smarties for a fun and tasty treat.

There's no need to chill the dough prior to baking, which means you can whip up a batch of this easy bake in no time.

Ingredients

(Makes 10 cookies)

125g butter - melted

75g light brown soft sugar

75g golden granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

200g plain flour

50g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

150g Smarties (4 small tubes)

Directions

Heat the oven to 180C/160Fan/Gas 5.
Line 2 large baking trays with baking paper (These cookies spread, so you may need 3 trays. Alternatively, bake in 2 batches).
Pour the melted butter into a large bowl. Tip in both sugars, then whisk to combine.
Lightly beat together the egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Pour this into the bowl, quickly whisk again.
Mix in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt until you have a soft dough.
Count out 40 Smarties of varying colours. Set aside.
Tip the rest of the Smarties into the bowl, then fold them through the cookie dough.
To make each cookie, weigh out 65g of mixture. Use your hands to shape each portion into a disc shape - approximately 8cm in diameter and 1.5cm tall.
Place each disc onto the lined baking trays. The baked cookies will be approximately 10cm in diameter, so make sure you leave enough spreading room between each portion.
Arrange 4 different coloured Smarties over the top of the cookie disc. Press them in to the dough slightly.
Bake in the oven for 8 minutes.
Leave the cookies to cool for about 10 minutes on the tray, then carefully transfer to a wire rack.

Chocolate Smarties Cookies Recipe Notes:

Using melted butter helps these cookies spread more, but does mean the dough is quite soft. However, you should still be able to mould it into disc shapes with your hands before you place it on the baking tray. Alternatively, you can drop 65g of the mixture onto the tray then shape it using your hands or the back of a metal spoon.

When you take the cookies out of the oven they will look slightly domed. As they cool, the cookies will sink, crack and harden, which makes it easier to transfer them. Therefore, to avoid breakages, do not try to move them as soon as they come out of the oven.