Salted Brownie Cookies

Salted brownie cookies: deeply chocolatey, fudgy cookies with crisp edges and a sprinkle of flaky salt on top.  Also known as the best thing my kitchen has produced in a very long time.

I love it when a random baking idea hits me and the resulting recipe just WORKS. 

Let me be clear: it doesn’t happen often.  Usually it’s fail after fail after mediocre fail, followed by me giving up for a while, followed by trying again a week or a month or a year later, again and again until finally I am pleased with the result.  

Not with these.

These little bites of heaven came into the world already knowing exactly what they wanted to be, and they delivered.  I woke up one morning last week obsessed with the idea of the intense, fudgy chocolate of a brownie, but the crisp, shattering edges of a cookie (wait, is this not normal? you don’t wake up dreaming of these things?). 

I knew there would have to be salt on top, as all good chocolatey things need salt to balance them.  But would it be a cookie dough masquerading as a brownie, or would it be actual brownie batter that I’d somehow firm up enough to keep its shape as cookies?

So as soon as I could, I did some research and discovered that a few other people had shared my brain wave.  Namely, Food & Wine had a lovely-looking recipe that I knew I could tweak to my own preferences (removing some steps, no mixer, different proportions, etc).  It was a brownie batter chilled until scoopable, which is genius and which I thought I could work with.  So tweak I did.

I baked it once; I baked it twice; I fed it to family at a dinner, and friends by the pool.  And the results are in: salted brownie cookies are the best things that have come out of my kitchen in quite a while.  Brian’s family wouldn’t let us take any back home with us, and I watched with delight as one of my friends went through four in a row while sitting by the pool (don’t let her know I told you that). 

And they’re actually really easy to make!  Like, dangerously easy.  Let’s talk about this.

Steps and tips for success:

1. Use good chocolate – I used Trader Joe’s Pound Plus Dark Chocolate, the 54% cocoa solid version (not the 72%, but you could certainly try that one).  Chocolate is the main flavor here, so you don’t want to use cheap stuff.
2. Melt gently – When melting the chocolate, make sure to do so gently so you don’t scorch it.  I did this in small bursts in the microwave, stirring in between, but you could also do it in a double boiler if you, unlike me, are patient.
3. CHILL THE BATTER.  I cannot stress this one enough – it’s an absolute must to chill this batter before baking for at least half an hour.  It’s a brownie batter, not a dough, so it’s much wetter than cookie dough is.  If you tried to scoop it just after mixing, you’d have a puddled mess.  Chilling it allows the chocolate to become semi-solid again, and makes it scoopable.  I recommend 30 minutes to an hour for chilling, though I also had success chilling the scooped dough on the cookie sheet overnight (because I ran out of time) and putting it straight in the oven from there.  I just wouldn’t recommend chilling the batter in the bowl overnight because it would become pretty solid and hard to scoop.
4. Use a cookie scoop.  It’ll be much less messy that way.  I use a tablespoon cookie scoop (which actually gives you slightly more than a tablespoon) and highly recommend it.
5. Use good salt on top.  I used a flaky sea salt and it makes all the difference in terms of flavor.  Just a tiny sprinkle is all you need – don’t go overboard.

You need to make these, ASAP.  Honestly, I have nothing else to say.

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