There’s a cookie place in the UK that has an almost cult following. Like Mrs. Field’s, Famous Amos, David’s and Levain’s of New York famed mammoth chocolate chunk cookies, these British cookies make people swoon. I’ve had them cold and Fed-exed and even cold, Ben’s Cookies are impressive. I don’t have their recipe and I wouldn’t even want to attempt to replicate someone else’s creativity or endeavour. But I do have a son Ben – and he loves huge, chocolate things like hunks of Notting Hill Brownies and my own Ben’s cookies – made for him. These take baking soda which makes them puffy and deepens their chocolate crumb and they are topped with chunks of chocolate which melts into a halo of bittersweet decadence. Bake them big and delight in those huge crackles which form – the result of a stiff batter balking against the strain of the leavener and creating those fissures we seem to love in cookies. If I could replicate these in a regular Toll House cookie, I’d be way pleased. It’s a challenge that lies ahead.