Salted Cookies

I love what big flakes of salt can add to different foods like pretzels, edimame, a medium rare steak, french fries. For a while now whenever I'm eating a chocolate chip cookie, I'd stop short of dipping it in a dish of salt and dream what a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie would taste like with a sprinkle of kosher salt on top. Surely someone had thought of this before. Well this afternoon I finally whipped up a batch and I think I fell in love.

I took out my tried and true Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (thanks, Martha) and just sprinkled a bit of kosher salt on each cookie before popping them in the oven. I imagine you could use any favorite recipe you have, but I would recommend using a recipe that uses butter, not shortening, as the fat. Also, you have to use kosher salt and not table salt, otherwise the saltiness will be too harsh. The large flakes found in Kosher salt dissolve on the tongue more slowly and sweetly than the fine crystals of table salt do.

When they come out the oven the salt crystals lovingly embed themselves in the surface of the cookie, without completely dissolving, just waiting to burst on your tongue and contrasting the sweet chocolate chips. You might want to sprinkle a touch more Kosher salt on them after they come out of the oven so they are more visually appealing. Also, replacing the semi-sweet chocolate chips with dark or bittersweet chocolate chips and adding some chopped walnuts really compliment the slightly salty topping.