Salted Dark Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

If you look carefully you can see the shiny little specks of salt that set this cookie apart from your average chocolate chip cookie, well that and the dark chocolate chips.  Look for dark chocolate with a high cocoa content, 60% or more when you make these.

 Now, I am a person who loves visiting bakeries.  I call it “market research”.  I enjoy tasting their versions of things I already make and getting ideas for new recipes.  My recipe today is actually one that a friend tasted in a bakery back in our home town and asked it I could give her a recipe for it.  I haven’t tasted that cookie so I am not sure how close I came but I am pleased with the outcome.

Just for the record, I only use real butter in all of my cookies, so my advice is not to sub in margarine or shortening.    I actually do this for both flavor reasons but also because I try to avoid using hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils as much as I can.  It is best to let your butter come to room temperature on the counter if possible. If you have to microwave it to soften it be careful not to over soften it or have it start to melt, if that happens you will want to refrigerate your dough for a little while before you bake it. I know lots of people use bananas and applesauce instead of some of the fat in effort to make the recipe healthier and that is all well and good but the cookie will not taste the same.

These cookies are thick and chewy. I baked all of the pastries for a local coffee shop for 9 months and they wanted the cookies to be thick and chewy, so I have played with my cookie recipes a lot.  If you like your cookies thin, reduce the flour by a half of a cup.  As I say in all of my posts, I use a scale to measure my flour so I gave you both cups and ounces of flour.  The scale helps me to be consistent with my results.  If you use cups, be careful to use a spoon to fill your cup with flour and then a knife to level it off.  This is one ingredient that can differ pretty greatly depending on how you measure it.

I use an actual cookie scoop to measure the dough for two reasons.  First it ensures that all of your cookies are very close to the same size which helps them to bake evenly.  And secondly, it gives them a nice uniform shape so them look pretty when they are done.

For aesthetic purposes and to get more chocolate in them, I like to have some extra chocolate chips to place on top of the cookies after the cookies are on the pan.

Lastly, the salt gives the cookie an amazing finishing touch but make sure you have a light touch.  I have over salted in the past and more is not better.  I use the grinder salt on a medium setting and do a light sweep across the top.

Another helpful tip is that I make a batch of cookie dough and then portion them all out and put them in an airtight container in the fridge.  I only bake what we will be eating for the day.  Assuming your ingredients are all fresh, you can leave them in your fridge for a week.  If you think it will be longer, store them in the freezer and just let them sit out for about a half hour before you bake them.  This is one of my favorite little tricks, but because of this practice, my family is very spoiled.  They will see a cookie on the counter in a baggie and ask, “was that made fresh today?”  It is also beneficial  in helping to keep you from eating a whole batch in one day.  After dinner while your oven is still hot, toss in as many cookies as you want for dessert.  Your house smells great, you have soft, warm, fresh cookies and you get to maintain your hero status for another day.  The other bonus is that when someone stops by unexpectedly, you have something delicious to pull out of the fridge and make quickly to serve with coffee.

So, without further adeau, here is the recipe.