Ever wondered what to do when the baking urge is strong but you forgot to bring your eggs to room temperature first? (Answer: plunge them into a cup of warm tap water.) Or how magazine food stylists get their cookies perfectly round? (Read on!)

In her cookbook First, Cream the Butter and Sugar, baking enthusiast (and MasterChef: Back to Win champ) Emelia Jackson tackles these burning issues, sharing her favourite baking recipes and a heaped helping of pro tips to help you become the best baker you can be.

Here are some of her best cookie recipes. Get cracking!

The only chocolate-chip cookie recipe you'll ever need

My criteria for an amazing chocolate-chip cookie is fairly simple: crisp and chewy texture, overloaded with quality chocolate chips and, most importantly, not sickly sweet. I like the chocolate to do the sweet talking, with just a faint touch of molasses from the brown sugar to really amp up the ante. This is one of those recipes that you'll go back for, time and time again. Adapted from the world-famous New York Times recipe, I've simplified without compromising the final flavour and texture of the cookies.

INGREDIENTS

• 560g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp sea salt flakes, plus extra for sprinkling (for that salty "pop")
• 300g unsalted butter, softened
• 300g light brown sugar
• 250g caster sugar
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
• 500g dark chocolate chips

METHOD

1. Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Give these dry ingredients a good whisk (because I hate sifting) and set aside.
2. Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla. (I add the eggs at this point because the extra moisture helps the butter really cream up.)
3. Reserve some of the chocolate chips to add to the cookies after baking. Add all of the dry ingredients and the remaining chocolate chips to the butter mixture and mix until just combined. Do not overmix the dough once the flour has been added – you don't want to develop any of the gluten in the flour, as this will leave you with a tough cookie.
4. This is the hardest step of all: refrigerate your cookie dough for 12-36 hours before baking. The longer you refrigerate the dough, the more flavour development will occur, the less the cookies will spread and the better the overall texture will be. Seems worth it, hey?
5. When you're ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 160C fan-forced (180C conventional). Line two baking trays with baking paper or silicone baking mats and place six golf ball-sized rounds of dough on the trays, using about 50g dough for each one. The cookies will spread, so give them space to do their thing. Sprinkle with extra sea salt flakes.
6. Bake the cookies in batches for 12-14 minutes or until caramelised around the edges but still soft and blond towards the centre. To get your cookies perfectly round, see my tips. As soon as the cookies are out of the oven, sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips. Allow to cool on the trays for 15 minutes, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack and dive in, head first.

I recommend eating the cookies with a cup of tea or coffee to ensure you can handle eating six in a sitting. We don't want that "back of the throat" sugar build-up to hold you back from full enjoyment!

Makes 40

Note:

You can refrigerate the dough for anywhere between 12 and 36 hours (or even longer if you wish, and you can even freeze the rolled dough balls). My general recommendation is 24 hours. If you just can't help yourself, you can bake a few cookies immediately to get that satisfactory hit and refrigerate the rest of the dough for the following day. Run your own experiments with timing and decide whether or not you think it makes a difference. The dough will be really firm once chilled, so you can roll the dough balls in advance and refrigerate them, ready to bake.

Mix it up!

Leave out the dark chocolate chips and you have a great base recipe for any flavoured drop cookie. Here are some suggestions:

White chocolate, sour cherry and pistachio cookies

Add 350g white chocolate chips, 120g dried sour cherries and 120g roasted pistachios. Drizzle with a little melted white chocolate and sprinkle with chopped pistachios.

Blueberry, lemon and white chocolate cookies

Add 400g white chocolate chips, 60g freeze-dried blueberries and the grated zest of 2 lemons.

Milk chocolate hazelnut crunch cookies

Add 350g milk chocolate chips, 150g roughly chopped roasted hazelnuts and 50g crispy dark chocolate pearls (such as Valrhona, available from specialist food stores).

Raspberry and white chocolate cookies

Add 60g freeze-dried raspberries and 350g white or ruby chocolate chips.

Hazelnut-stuffed chocolate-chip cookies

Refrigerate (or freeze) a jar of chocolate hazelnut spread (such as Nutella) for 30 minutes to firm it up. Flatten each ball of chocolate-chip dough into a disc and fill it with a heaped teaspoon of the firm chocolate spread. Wrap the dough into a ball and make sure it's completely sealed before baking.

Cereal chocolate-chip cookies

Keep the chocolate chips and add 180g mini-marshmallows and 60g cornflakes.

Oat and raisin cookies – my all-time favourite

I don't know what it is about an oat and raisin cookie that does it for me. Maybe it's the toasty oats and buttery goodness. Maybe it's the pops of sweetness from the raisins through the almost savoury flavour of the cookie. Maybe I've convinced myself that they're OK to eat for breakfast because, really, they're just the solid version of porridge. Whatever it is, I am obsessed with these chunky oat and raisin cookies, my numero uno go-to when I'm feeling like a tasty little afternoon morsel.

INGREDIENTS

• 225g unsalted butter, softened
• 200g light brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste or extract
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ tsp sea salt flakes
• 180g rolled oats
• 130g raisins or sultanas

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan-forced (180C conventional). Line two baking trays with baking paper or silicone baking mats.
2. Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until pale and creamy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix to combine, scraping down the side of the bowl and the beater to ensure the egg is completely incorporated and there are no streaks of butter.
3. Gently stir in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and sea salt until just combined. Add the rolled oats and raisins and stir until just combined.
4. Using an ice-cream scoop, scoop out even-sized balls of the dough and place them on the baking trays, leaving plenty of space for the cookies to spread.
5. Bake the cookies in batches for 12-15 minutes or until the edges are a perfectly golden brown. If they have spread, use my trick (see below) to shape them into perfect rounds. Allow the cookies to cool completely on the trays before transferring to your plate.

Makes 20

The shortest shortbread

When shortbread is good, it's really good – buttery, melting in your mouth, with pops of salt throughout. Adding a little cornflour or rice flour to the dough really helps achieve the sandy texture that you're looking for in a home-made shortbread, but you can replace it with the same quantity of plain flour. Experiment and see which texture you prefer.

INGREDIENTS

• 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 60g icing sugar
• 160g plain flour
• 30g cornflour
• pinch of salt

METHOD

1. Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and icing sugar until combined and smooth, making sure you scrape down the side of the bowl.
2. Sift the plain flour, cornflour and salt over the butter mixture and mix until the dough just comes together. The mixture will be sandy like breadcrumbs and it may take a couple of minutes to bring it together.
3. Turn the dough out onto a piece of baking paper or a silicone baking mat and gently roll it out into a circle about 1cm thick, being careful not to overwork the dough. Pinch the edges into a crimped pattern. Score the shortbread into eight wedges and prick each piece four times with a fork. Place the dough in the fridge to chill for at least 1-2 hours (overnight is best).
4. Preheat the oven to 150C fan-forced (170C conventional).
5. Transfer the baking paper or mat and shortbread onto a baking tray. Bake the shortbread for 30-35 minutes or until light golden brown. Allow the shortbread to cool completely on the tray.

Mix it up!

Add a couple of handfuls of chopped walnuts to the dough before you roll it out – delicious!

Makes 8 wedges

Dulce de leche sandwiches

This is my take on the alfajores cookie that we all know and love but can't pronounce with any level of confidence. It's essentially a sandwich cookie consisting of two vanilla shortbread cookies held together with a thick slather of dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is a milk caramel that is readily available in supermarkets. You can make it yourself at home (see below), but why not take the easy route and buy the stuff? Any leftovers can be eaten with a spoon, directly from the jar.

INGREDIENTS

• 200g unsalted butter, softened
• 150g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• 1 egg
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 350g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 150g cornflour
• 200g dulce de leche (below or store-bought)

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan-forced (180C conventional). Line two baking trays with baking paper or silicone baking mats.
2. Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, egg yolks, vanilla, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and mix to combine, scraping down the side of the bowl and the beater to ensure there are no large streaks of butter that will affect the finished cookies.
3. Put the plain flour and cornflour in a large bowl and give them a good whisk to combine and work out any lumps. Add the mixture to the butter mixture and stir until it comes together into a nice soft dough.
4. Tip the dough out onto your lightly floured bench and divide it in half. Roll out the dough to about 3mm thick (remembering that the cookies will rise in the oven) and cut out rounds using a 4cm cutter (a fluted cutter gives a nice effect, too). Transfer the cookies to the baking trays, leaving space for spreading.
5. Bake the cookies in batches for 15-17 minutes or until they are golden around the edges. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool completely.
6. Spoon the dulce de leche into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe it onto half of the cookies. Sandwich with the rest of the cookies and dust with icing sugar.

Mix it up!

You can substitute the dulce de leche with any jam you love or a chocolate hazelnut spread (such as Nutella).

Makes 22

Dulce de leche

While you can readily buy dulce de leche at the supermarket, it's easy to make at home. It just requires a tin of sweetened condensed milk and a few spare hours. You can cook multiple tins at a time and store them in the pantry for later use.

INGREDIENTS

• 400g tin sweetened condensed milk

METHOD

1. Place the unopened tin of condensed milk in a large saucepan and completely cover it with water. Cover the pan with a lid, bring to the boil and cook for a minimum of 4 hours for a deep caramel colour. Ensure the water stays at boiling point and top up the water if it drops below the top of the tin.

Makes 400g

How to get your cookies perfectly round

Let me set the scene … You're baking cookies from your favourite cookbook (First, Cream the Butter and Sugar, I'll assume). You glance at the picture of perfectly round cookies, chocolate chips sitting in perfect position on top. You decide that you're going to roll your cookies as round as you can. They will be perfect.

Fast-forward 20 minutes or so. You pull your tray of cookies out of the oven and … they're not round and they've spread all over the place. What the?! Well, I am here to save the day. Here is how I (and most bakers) achieve those perfectly round cookies, every time.

1. Remove the tray of cookies from the oven a couple of minutes before they have finished baking – you want them to be soft to allow for some shaping action.
2. Take a cookie cutter, ring cutter or anything round that's slightly wider than your cookies. (I have a pack of ring cutters that has about 20 different sizes in it – I highly recommend buying one.)
3. Place the cutter over one of the piping-hot cookies and gently move it around in a circular motion, shaping the cookie as you move the cutter. Watch as your cookie goes from a randomly spread shape to a perfect circle, right before your eyes!
4. Repeat with the remaining cookies, then return your cookies to the oven for the final couple of minutes of baking.

And here's another tip: perfectly placed chocolate chips can be added on top of cookies as soon as you pull them out of the oven. They will melt with the heat but still hold their form and reset as the cookies cool. Pretty as a picture.

After baking

I like to allow cookies to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing them from the baking tray to allow them to firm up and retain their shape.

Cookies, like most baked goods, are best eaten within a couple of days of baking. However, they can usually be stored in an airtight container for up to 10 days.

This is an edited extract from First, Cream the Butter and Sugar by Emelia Jackson, photography by Armelle Habib. Murdoch Books RRP $59.99.