At the moment, and for more than a year, I haven't had a decent camera to be able to capture my delicious creations. I've tried so many times to take nice pictures of my gazpacho or cookies or cakes or other foods with my phone, only to hate how they came out. It's not that my phone camera is bad either, it's actually pretty good, but at night, or in poor lighting, it doesn't shine. And I detest posting recipes without photos.
Call me square but I won't do it, for the same reason I would never buy a recipe book without photos. I want to know what the food is supposed to look like, in an ideal world that is. My food rarely comes out looking as perfect as cookbook photos, or even as good as the photos on other food blogs I admire and follow, but I like having the guideline and I want to give that to you too (even if what you see here is less than perfect).
So, even though these phone photos don't quite do these cookies justice, they're the best I have from the past year's worth of food. Plus, I'm dying to share this recipe as these really are my new favorite chocolate cookie. That doesn't mean I love my Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies any less, it just means that I have a more traditional, non-shortbread chocolate chip cookie that I can bake for my boyfriend who, for an Italian, is a serious chocolate chip cookie fiend.
As a note, the original recipe mentions extra dough (which I know, sounds like a foreign concept) but if you happen to have any you can make it into scoops and pop them right into a container to freeze, being careful not to crowd them or they'll be all stuck together. If you're not willing to risk them getting stuck together you can also freeze them on a cookie sheet until they're solid then put them in a freezer bag. They might need one more minute in the oven but what I love about this cookie is that's just about the only difference between the frozen ones and the ones baked the day of.
Without further ado, here's the recipe!
Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)
Yield: Approximately 20 to 24 cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature (as always, I used salted butter and then just didn't add any later in the recipe)
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
2 tablespoons (25 grams) turbinado sugar (aka Sugar in the Raw. Not strictly necessary but it adds a bit of crunch. You can just use more granulated sugar if you don't have this)
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (165 grams) packed light or dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
1 3/4 cups (220 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 pound (225 grams) semi- or bittersweet chocolate, cut into roughly 1/2-inch chunks (or just great chocolate chips, I'm partial to Ghirardelli bittersweet chips)
Flaky sea salt, to finish (optional, I often forget this and they're still delicious)
Directions:
1) Heat oven to 360°F (180°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.
2) In a large bowl, cream the butter (1/2 cup) and sugars (2 tbsp granulated, 2 tbsp turbinado, 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp brown) together with an electric mixer until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
3) Add egg and vanilla (1 tsp), beating until incorporated, and scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat in salt fine sea or table salt (1/4 + 1/8 tsp) and baking soda (3/4 tsp) until combined, then the flour (1 3/4 cups) on a low speed until just mixed. The dough will look crumbly at this point. With a spatula, fold in the chocolate chunks/chips. I often find I need to mix with my clean hands to get them fully incorporated.
4) Scoop cookies into 1 1/2 tablespoon mounds, spacing them apart on the prepared baking sheet. I recommend using a cookie/cupcake scoop if you have one as it makes the perfect size and is so easy. If not, rolling them into balls will work fine too, just be sure to squish them down a bit before you cook them since I find that these cookies don't spread as much as others.
5) Sprinkle each with a few flakes of sea salt. Bake for 11 to 12 minutes, until golden on the outside but still very gooey and soft inside. Out of the oven, let rest on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring a cooling rack.
