Baking god Rich Meyers shares his delicious salted chocolate cookies recipe with all of us. And yes, they taste as good as they look [we tested them a few times to make sure].
By Rich Meyers
Our salted chocolate cookies are quite thin: they’re a classic crispy on the edges, chewy on the outside and soft in the middle type of affair. If you’re looking for anything else, you’ve come to the wrong place.
MAKES: 10 cookies
INGREDIENTS
140g (5oz) softened unsalted butter
110g (33/4oz) caster (superfine) sugar
140g (5oz) light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
140g (5oz) plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted
140g (5oz) strong white bread flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 tsp sea salt, plus an extra pinch to finish
250g (9oz) 55% dark chocolate buttons, or a bar chopped into chunks
METHOD
- Start by creaming the butter and sugars together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the beater attachment until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla to your egg, then add to the butter and sugar mixture. Using the beater attachment, mix for 1 minute, or until emulsified, then scrape down the base and sides of the bowl. Weigh out the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and salt and add to the bowl. Beat on the lowest speed until the mixture comes together. Add the chocolate and beat until it’s mixed evenly throughout.
- Using an ice cream scoop, or your hands, scoop the mixture into ten 100g (3½oz) pucks and place onto a greaseproof paper-lined tray. Cover the tray in cling film (plastic wrap) and put it into the fridge for at least 24 hours (at most 72 hours). Letting the pucks chill before baking them makes all the difference. It gives the cookies a depth of flavour that you just can’t achieve without letting them rest. Be patient – your cookies will be good if you rush the process, but sensational if you don’t. If you absolutely must bake the cookies on the same day, try to give them at least 6 hours to chill before baking.
- When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 150°C (300°F/gas 2). Split the ten pucks across two greaseproof paper-lined baking trays, leaving enough space between them to allow for spreading in the oven.
- Bake for 12–15 minutes, or until the cookies resemble cookies. If they’re still bulging in the centre, then they’re not ready yet. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with sea salt while still warm (if you wait until they’ve cooled, the salt won’t stick). The salt really helps to bring out the flavour of the chocolate, but don’t use too much, or it’ll taste salty, and quite literally nobody wants a salty cookie.
Top tip
The salted chocolate cookies will keep for up to 2 days in an airtight container but are best eaten on the day you make them.
Don’t be tempted to eat them when they’re still hot out of the oven, because despite what you see in the movies, they need time to rest, and a cookie fresh out of the oven is nowhere near as good as you’d hope it would be.
Salted chocolate cookies recipe: Images and text from Get Baked by Rich Meyers, photography by Ellis Parrinder. White Lion Publishing RRP $29.99.
