Smartie pants

Is it just me, or does everyone elses' cookies spread horribly and end up wafer thin?  It doesn't seem to matter what recipe I use, they're always exactly the same. EXCEPT for today -woohoo!

Today, I used a Nigella recipe - why I didn't search for one of hers first as they're always successful,aren't they?  It seems to have a pretty high flour content so the dough was "rollable" rather than "spoonable".  This seems to make all the difference, plus I rolled it into balls then baked them once they were really cold.

I didn't actually have enough smarties so used some hundreds and thousands pressed onto the dough and also some freckles chocolates.

This is the recipe, taken straight from Nigella's site, though now I've re-read it, it's not one of hers at all, but one of her fan's recipes!  How funny, just shows how rubbish I am at cookie making, huh?

Smartie Cookies

Ingredients

345g (690ml) plain flour

5ml Bicarbonate of Soda

3ml baking powder
2ml salt

250g butter (or block margarine) softened

300g (375ml) sugar

1 extra large egg, beaten

5ml vanilla extract

2 x 150g Smarties

Method

Makes around 24 big cookies

1. Sift dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside.
2. Cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, beat in egg and vanilla extract.
3. Gradually beat in sifted dry ingredients to form a stiff dough. Stir in one box of Smarties.
4. Roll dough into large walnut sized balls and place on un-greased baking trays. Leave plenty of room to expand!
5. Press three or four Smarties into each ball.
6. Bake at 190 degrees, 12 to 15 minutes until pale golden brown. Leave on trays 2 minutes and remove to cooling racks to cool completely. Store in airtight tins
7. Scoff (ok, I added that bit in)