Mine-all-mine sweet and salty chocolate cookies
The lone-dweller, in need of the balm that only a freshly baked biscuit can provide, is faced with a most unsatisfactory choice: do without or make a batch big enough to keep a huge hungry household happy. I had to put that right, and I have created a cookie recipe that answers my every requirement: deeply chocolatey, sweet but not too sweet, and sprinkled with sea salt flakes.
Ingredients
- 50²µ/1¾´Ç³ú plain flour (gluten free if necessary)
- 10²µ/â…“o³ú cocoa powder
- â…› tsp baking powder (gluten free if necessary)
- â…› tsp bicarbonate of soda
- â…› tsp fine sea salt
- 50²µ/1¾´Ç³ú soft unsalted butter (or dairy-free baking block, if you want these to be vegan)
- 25g/1oz caster sugar
- 15g/½oz soft dark brown sugar
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- 25g/1oz dark chocolate chips
- ¼ tsp sea salt flakes
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment – you don’t need to line it if it’s nonstick.
Stir the flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and fine sea salt together in a small bowl.
In a slightly larger bowl, vigorously beat the butter, both the sugars and the vanilla with a small wooden spoon until you have a creamy mixture.
Add a generous spoonful of the dry ingredients to the creamed butter and sugar and beat it in gently with your wooden spoon. Then, in about 3 batches, gently beat in the rest of the dry ingredients. Once they are absorbed, beat vigorously until you have a rich brown dough, then stir in the chocolate chips.
Weigh this mixture, and divide it in 2; you don’t need to be fanatical about this, a few grams here or there won’t make a difference. Squidge each half in your hands to form 2 fat patties about 7cm/2¾in in diameter and place them on your baking sheet, at least 10cm/4in apart, as they spread while cooking.
Sprinkle â…› teaspoon of sea salt flakes over each cookie and bake for about 12 minutes, until the top of each biscuit is cracked. At 10 minutes they will be utterly smooth, but in the next 2 minutes they seem to transform themselves. I crouch by the oven, staring through the glass door.
Once the surface is cracked, the cookies are ready. They will, however, feel very soft – even uncooked – to the touch, and you will doubt me. But I will forgive you, as long as you obey me. Whip out the baking sheet, leaving the cookies in place for 5 minutes. Then slip a metal spatula under the cookies and transfer them to a wire rack. For optimal eating pleasure, leave for another 10 minutes before biting into one.
Recipe Tips
Since there is no egg involved, it is a simple enough matter to veganise these: just replace the butter with the kind of margarine that comes not in a tub, but in a block, manufactured specifically for baking. I’ve tried making them with coconut oil, which would be a more wholesome substitute, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t work. Dark chocolate should always be dairy-free, but do check the packet of chocolate chips to make sure. While you can make these gluten-free, you will have to let them get cold before eating them (or they won’t hold together) thus forgoing the goo, but enjoying them rather as tender chocolate shortbread.
