Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I’m back in the U.S for the holidays (yay!) but I can’t say it was smooth sailing getting here (boo!) You see: with no more direct flights from the eternal city to Boston, we opted for a layover in Newark, New Jersey. Which sounds reasonable enough, right? Except that the flight from Rome departed late, meaning we missed our connecting flight and had to wait 7 hours in the Newark airport for the next one – which was also delayed.

Upon arriving at our final destination, our luggage finally (wearily, it seemed) appeared at 1am, after a 45 minute wait. In short: we were awake and traveling for a whopping total of 24 hours, a timespan I deem appropriate for traveling to, say, Australia, but not so much East Greenwich, RI.

What does all of this have to do with Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies, you may be wondering? Well: I strongly suspect that a bite of one these beauties might have been a game-changer, a mood-lifter, capable of making me forget how much time I still had left in Newark Liberty International. These are not your average cookies, people. These are magical cookies, divine enough to make a nap in a plastic airport chair seem vaguely bearable and delicious enough to soften the edges of even the most endless of journeys across the Atlantic. And how could they not? They’re soft and chewy, adorned with pools of dark chocolate, redolent of brown sugar and vanilla, and sprinkled with sea salt — an ingredient that exalts the chocolate, complements the cookie’s buttery undertones, and makes it impossible to stop at just one. Next time I travel, I’m packing a dozen of these. Just in case.

And you? Take them with you for when you travel lest there be any hiccups, tuck them into your last holiday cookie tins, or bake them for Santa (they’re great with milk). Whatever you do: make sure you bake these, ASAP.

A couple of notes: Turbinado sugar* is known as Sugar in the Raw in the U.S; it adds a nice crunch to the cookies, but if you don’t have this, more brown sugar is also fine. If you want to have cookies ready whenever a craving strikes, or if you want to prepare these in advance, the cookie dough can be formed into scoops and frozen on a baking sheet until solid, then stored in a freezer bag. Cookies baked right from the freezer might need another minute more in the oven. Deb from Smitten Kitchen points out that one could also form the dough into a 2-inch log, freeze it, and slice and bake the cookies off.

Looking for other cookie recipes? Click here.

SALTED CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES

Recipe from Ashley Rodriguez (www.notwithoutsalt.com) via Smitten Kitchen. Makes 18-24 cookies.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (4 ounces or 113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
2 tablespoons (25 grams) turbinado sugar (see notes above*)
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (165 grams) packed light or dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
Heaped 1/4 teaspoon (or, technically, 1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon) fine sea or table salt
1 3/4 cups (220 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 pound (225 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped roughly

Flaky sea salt, to finish

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 360°F (180°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars together with an electric mixer until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, beating until incorporated, and scraping down the bowl as needed. In a medium bowl, stir together the salt, baking soda, and flour, and add the dry ingredients to butter/sugar/egg mix at low speed, beating until just combined. The dough will look crumbly at this point — this is fine! Fold in the chocolate chunks.

Scoop cookies into mounds (about 1 1/2 tablespoon dough per cookie, or use a cookie scoop) and place them on the prepared baking sheet— they will spread a bit, so leave space between each. Sprinkle each scoop of dough 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. Let the cookies cool slightly on the baking sheet before moving them to a wire wrack to cool completely. Enjoy.