Double chocolate chilli cookies

I take after my father when it comes to my feelings on biscuits. And those feelings - hatred.

It's quite the feat if Dad manages to refrain from cursing when the response from Nana to his favourite statement "I'm hungry" is "have a biscuit".

The daddio and my lovely Nana

And biscuits are everywhere - including my pantry - but that is ALL Elliot (and Chocoades... come on). I can't even escape them at work.

When the lovely tea man at work first offered me a biscuit for afternoon tea and I responded "I don't like biscuits" you would have thought, judging by his reaction, that I had just insulted his own mother.  And then when he thought he could win me over on "chocolate biscuit Friday" and I sadly had to see that look all over again, well, I should have just eaten the Tim Tam.

But these tasty habanero chocolate morsels have changed my view. Well, I won't be partaking in Elliot's nightly ritual of a Collision after dinner, but we are getting there...

These cookies are chocolately, soft in the middle, crunchy on the outside and really are rather spicy.

Not really being a baker, and therefore not having an arsenal of standard biscuit, cake and pastry recipes up my sleeve, I scoured the internet for what I thought sounded like a good start point for my cookies.

Then I needed to decide what form of chilli to put in the biscuits and decided on the habanero as it was my favourite chili we grew due to its flavour. You get the sweet flavour of the chilli before the ridiculous heat takes over and makes you hate yourself for putting it anywhere near your mouth.

They look harmless enough, but are crazy hot

So Elliot ground a couple of habaneros into powder and away we went. Now, this batch only makes about nine medium-sized biscuits as I made the batch quite small as it was a trial batch due to really not being sure about how much of the habanero powder to put in. It turns out, however, they were rather perfect in heat level, so just double the recipe if more are required - and trust me, they will be.

Habanero powder

You could also try this with normal chilli powder if you wanted a milder heat (and/or don't have habanero powder).

• 1 c plain flour
• 1/3 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp habanero powder
• 1 small egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/3 c (78g) butter, softened 
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1 Tb caster sugar
• Handful of milk chocolate drops (just as many as you like really)
• Handful of dark chocolate drops

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and habanero powder into a bowl.

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add the brown sugar and caster sugar and beat until combined. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until creamy.

Slowly add the flour mix until combined well.

Mix in the chocolate drops with a wooden spoon.

Rest the dough in the fridge for at least an hour (and try not to eat it all).

You can even see the scary little red specks

Roll into balls, flatten slightly and place on a baking paper-lined oven tray (making sure they have enough room to spread a little).

Bake at 165C° for about 18 minutes - until slightly brown on the outside but still soft in the middle (keep an eye on them after about 15 minutes).

Cool on a wire rack.

Devour (especially when still warm - delish!). The best thing about these cookies is how the heat doesn't hit you right away. You bite into them and get the chocolately goodness and then the heat slowly kicks in. The habanero's sweetness can really be appreciated too.

Unfortunately Dad is a bit of a lightweight when it comes to spicy food so I'm not sure he'll join me on the biscuit-loving dark side just yet...