Tags: 12daysofchristmascookies Chocolate Christmas cookies Sweet Tooth
DAY 5 – Pistachio & Dark Chocolate Biscotti
I have a friend, a friend I love dearly. She’s a foodie like me and an excellent cook/baker. Actually, “excellent” doesn’t do her justice! She can cook anything on the planet and the sweet confections that come out of her kitchen would earn her ALL the “Hollywood Handshakes” on The Great British Baking Show! She’s no joke in the kitchen…an actual culinary genius.
We grew up in the same church in California and then, by divine happenstance, both ended up in northern Virginia twenty-some-odd-years later. When we moved here last year, it had been ages since we’d seen each other, but five minutes into our “Welcome to Virginia” dinner, it felt like we’d never been apart…we were simply the oldest and dearest of friends. She’s that kind of friend!
BUT…having said all that…this friend of mine has a very bad habit of teaching me bad habits! Breve latte’s, “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” grilled cheese, hot chocolate you have to eat with a spoon, coffee rubbed cheeseburgers, homemade eggnog, and a chocolate cake that the devil himself wrote the recipe for! She’s the absolute WORST!! Not even a year into our northern Virginia residence and I’ve already gained five pounds!!
While I’m hoarding every single “Leah” recipe I can get my grubby hands on, there is one recipe I feel the need to share—because it’s by far her greatest concoction:
SALTED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!!
These cookies aren’t mind-blowingly delicious because her chocolate chip cookie recipe is the best in town (the recipe below is actually a “Jillian Original”) No! They’re delicious because she thought to sprinkle SALT onto freshly baked cookies! So simple! So delicious!!
So yeah, this post isn’t “The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe”; instead, it’s Leah’s ingenious idea to take a perfectly adequate chocolate chip cookie and elevate it to the millionth degree…with salt! In fact, you don’t even have to use my chocolate chip recipe below…take whatever chocolate chip cookie recipe you love and as soon as those beauties come out of the oven, sprinkle a little coarse salt on them. You’ll never go back to eating chocolate chip cookies without salt again!
Thank you Leah for introducing this to the world…and for the additional five pounds I’m bound to gain in the new year!
SALTED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
· ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
· ¾ cup granulated sugar
· ¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
· 2 large eggs, room temperature
· 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
· 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
· 1 tsp baking soda
· 1 tsp salt
· 1 package semisweet chocolate morsels
· Coarse salt
How to:
Preheat oven to 350°
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Beat butter and sugars at medium speed in bowl of stand mixer until creamy. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well incorporated (scraping down the sides of the bowl between each addition) add vanilla and beat until combined.
Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating until just combined. Beat in chocolate morsels until just combined. (You don’t want to overmix!)
Drop by tablespoons onto baking sheet.
Bake 10-14 minutes or until edges are golden brown.
As soon as cookies come out of the oven, sprinkle with coarse salt and prepare to be amazed!
