Turn the popular cake into chewy cookies, complete with cream cheese icing. Box them up to give as a gift, or make a batch of dough to keep in the freezer

• Preparation and cooking time
  • Prep:20 mins
  • Cook:15 mins
  • plus chilling
• Easy
• Makes 16-18

• Freezable (dough only)

Ingredients

• 175g soft salted butter
• 200g light brown soft sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ½-1 tbsp red food colouring gel, depending on strength
• 225g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 150g white chocolate chips or chunks

For the drizzle

• 2 tbsp soft cheese
• 6 tbsp icing sugar

Method

• STEP 1

  Beat the butter and sugars together with an electric whisk until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and food colouring until you have a bright red batter. Sieve over the flour, cocoa and bicarb. Fold everything together to make a stiff evenly-coloured dough, then fold in the chocolate chips.

• STEP 2

  Put the dough on a sheet of baking parchment, fold the parchment over the dough and mould into a sausage shape about 6cm wide. Chill until ready to bake. Will keep for a week in the fridge or one month in the freezer.

• STEP 3

  Heat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Cut the cookie dough into 1cm thick slices using a sharp knife and arrange on two large baking sheets lined with baking parchment well-spaced apart so they have room to spread in the oven. Bake in batches, keeping the unbaked cookies on the sheet in the fridge while the rest are baking.

• STEP 4

  Bake in the middle of the oven for 13-15 mins until the cookies are crisp at the edges, but still soft in the centre. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Beat the soft cheese in a small bowl to a loose consistency, then stir in the icing sugar. Use a piping bag or spoon to drizzle the icing over the cookies. Un-iced cookies keep for five days in an airtight container, or two days iced.