In times of change and confusion I go to my happy place: the kitchen. There is nothing more heartening than making comfort food and then stuffing my face with it. And there is no better comfort food than these salty, chocolatey, sandy, buttery, heavenly cookies.  

The recipe is originally from Pierre Hermé, by way of Dorie Greenspan. I have been making them for almost ten years, since I bought a copy of her stellar baking book Baking: From My Home to Yours.

You can find her recipe here: Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies. My version is closer to Dorie's original version, with a little less sugar and all white instead of brown. They always turn out perfectly.

150 g butter, soft

120 g sugar

1 tsp vanilla paste or extract

1 tsp salt

170 g flour

30 g cocoa powder

½ tsp baking soda

150 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar, then add the vanilla and salt.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda.

Gently fold the dry ingredients and the chopped chocolate into the butter mixture.

Prepare two pieces of plastic wrap, then split the dough between the two and roll into logs.

Refrigerate at least two hours or up to three days, or freeze.

When ready to bake

Preheat oven to 160 C / 325 F / gas mark 3.

Cut the logs into discs and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for 12 minutes, then let cool on the baking sheet.

• This is a really crumbly dough, when forming and cutting the logs you might have to press the pieces together.

• This is a delicate cookie. Let them cool completely on the baking sheet before trying to move them.

• I sometimes use this as a base recipe for other varieties of cookies. You could switch up the filling—half chocolate, half toffee pieces. Or different varieties of chocolate—white, milk, etc. Another variation is with dried cranberries—leave out the cocoa powder and exclusively use flour, add a tsp ginger powder, then use dried cranberries instead of chocolate.