There’s one particular office I go to where I always like to arrive burdened with biscuits. I take them in an old fashioned biscuit tin and I try to take something different each time.

These Brazil nut cookies are certainly different – it’s partly because of the nuts. There are loads of cookie recipes with pecans…walnuts even…but Brazil nuts, which I love, are unusual.

The other thing which makes them different is the texture – they certainly aren’t crisp and brittle like an English biscuit might be, nor are they gooey like a traditional north American cookie; they are a sort of nearly-cake. In a nice way.

I am also a great fan of chocolate Brazil nuts, a very successful pairing – so this recipe is wonderful with the molten dark chocolate drizzled over.

Recipe for cakey Brazil nut cookies

Makes about thirty

Ingredients

• 250g/8 oz butter
• 200g/1 cup golden caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsps vanilla paste
• 160g/1¼ cups plain flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 300g/10 oz Brazil nuts – roughly chopped
• 50g/½ cup desiccated coconut
• 100g/4 oz dark chocolate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Put the butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric whisk until it becomes pale and fluffy.
3. Add one egg, and whisk in; then the other.
4. Add the vanilla paste, whisk in.
5. Whisk in the flour, baking powder and the salt.
6. With a spoon, stir in the chopped nuts and the coconut.
7. Drop tablespoons of the mixture onto a large silicone-lined baking sheet, allowing space for expansion for each.
8. Bake for about ten minutes – they should be turning brown.
9. Melt the chocolate in a bain marie.
10. Take out and cool on a wire rack.
11. Drizzle over the chocolate.