Sweet and salty chocolate cookies
bake | vegan
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. To this end, I have created a cookie recipe that answers my every requirement: deeply chocolatey, sweet but not too sweet, and sprinkled with sea-salt flakes. It requires no more than a couple of bowls, a wooden spoon and a spot of stirring. And while I urge you to eat one when it’s still warm, so that it’s crisp around the edges, its centre gloriously gooey, you can leave the other until the next day (but no longer), when it will be slightly sandy and softly chewy. But these are big old biscuits, so, if you find yourself in company, you can graciously offer one of them without feeling short-changed.
Makes 2 large cookies
Ingredients
50g plain flour
10g cocoa
⅛ tsp baking powder
⅛ tsp bicarbonate of soda
⅛ tsp fine sea salt
50g soft, unsalted butter
25g caster sugar
15g soft, dark-brown sugar
¼ tsp vanilla extract
25g dark-chocolate chips
¼ tsp sea-salt flakes
Method
- Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/360F/gas mark 4 and get out a baking sheet. You don’t need to line it if it’s non-stick; otherwise place a sheet of baking parchment on it.
- Stir the flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and sea salt together in a small bowl.
- In a slightly larger bowl, vigorously beat the butter, both the sugars and the vanilla with a wooden spoon until you have a buff-coloured, creamy mixture.
- Add a generous spoonful of the dry ingredients to the creamed butter and sugar, and beat it in gently. Then beat in the rest of your dry ingredients, in about three batches. Once they’re absorbed, you can beat vigorously until you have a sticky, rich-brown dough that clumps together, at which point you can stir in the chocolate chips.
- It’s not often I demand this level of precision, but I now weigh this mixture, and divide it in two; 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 two fat patties about 7cm in diameter and place on your baking sheet, at least 10cm apart, as they spread while cooking.
- Sprinkle the sea-salt flakes over the cookies, and bake in the oven for about 12 minutes, until the top of each biscuit is riven with cracks. At 10 minutes, they will be utterly smooth, but in the next two minutes they seem to transform themselves.
- Once the surface is cracked, and the cookies have spread, they are ready. They will, however, feel very soft – even uncooked – to the touch. Whip the baking sheet out of the oven, leaving the cookies in place for five minutes. Only then may you slip a metal spatula under the cookies and transfer them to a wire rack. For optimal pleasure, leave for another 10 minutes before biting into one.