These are some of my most favorite cookies. They are rich, dark, chocolatey, and have that tang of flakey sea salt. And they use only one stick of butter! Seriously reasons to rejoice.
This is an adaptation of Valerie Aikman-Smith’s recipe in the cookbook Salt, which was given to me as a birthday gift, and I flipped through the book to the dessert section where I landed on this and was immediately smitten forevermore. (Thank you, Hana!)
I make a recipe, then bake only one dozen, and save the rest of the dough in an airtight container in the fridge. It’s like a surprise present for myself later when I am craving a warm, gooey, chocolatey mouthful of joy but only have the patience to scoop out blobs of cold dough and bake for 10 minutes to experience the melty, dark bliss these contain. I wish you the same joy.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 stick butter, softened, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp dark or light rum (not white), optional
- 1 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips (Yes, this is a second set of chocolate chips. If you’re like me, you’re already excited about this fact.)
- Fleur de sel (if you’re super fancy) or regular sea salt
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.
- Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a smallish bowl.
- In another smallish microwave-proof bowl, carefully microwave the 2/3 cup of chocolate chips in spurts of 20 seconds or so, stirring after each set of seconds till smooth and melted.
- Cream together butter and sugars with a mixer (or electric handheld beater) on high speed till light and fluffy, scraping down bowl as necessary. Add egg, vanilla, rum, and melted chocolate. Continue to beat till smooth. Reduce speed to slow, add flour mixture. When that is well mixed, stir in remaining 1 1/3 cups chocolate chips.
- Put mixture in refrigerator for 5 mins to harden slightly (or if you’re like me, skip this part because extending the wait seems unbearable at this point). Scoop tablespoons of mixture onto lightly greased baking sheet, about 2 in/5 cm. apart. Flatten slightly with spoon. Sprinkle a little fleur de sel or a pinch of good sea salt on top of each cookie and bake in preheated oven 10 mins.
Makes approximately 24-36 cookies, depending on size of ‘tablespoons’. I make this last for at least three separate batches of 12, because they’re just exquisite when they’re warm-from-the-oven.