Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

Need friends?

These little guys will make people like you.

Seriously, these little guys will win-over the grumpiest of office mates, and generally make your friends and family obsessed with your baking skills. Forget reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, all you need is this recipe.

They’ve been called many names: The chippers, mini bites, little pieces of heaven. Call them what you will. I call them good.

These are the perfect crowd pleaser. You can trick people into thinking you’ve spent hours perfecting a classic, when in actuality, euphoria comes to you in minutes. AND…sit down…in ONE bowl.

You know they’re good when your sister requests 2000 (not a typo) of them for her wedding in lieu of a fancy wedding cake. Or when a friend asks you to make them as a Valentine’s gift for her husband because no box of heart-shaped chocolates can compare.

Is it the sea salt on top? Probably. But maybe it’s not. Maybe you’ll have to try them and figure it out for yourself.

Now, with all that, let me warn you…they’ll steal your spotlight. Don’t take them anywhere that you want to be loved for you and only you. No one will even notice you are in the room once these cookies arrive. Trust me. A true friend is one who loves you when you show up without a tray of these guys. But really, who would do that?

This recipe is adapted from an old Betty Crocker recipe pamphlet I purchased in the grocery check out line years ago. The original calls for margarine and shortening. I replaced those with the real thing, butter. If you’re doing dessert, do it right. I’ve also tweaked it a bit to get more rise in each cookie. I hate a flat cookie.

1.25 cups granulated sugar
1.25 cups brown sugar
1.5 cups (3 sticks) butter softened (I use salted)
1 Tablespoon Mexican vanilla (you can also use regular vanilla)
2 eggs
4 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 bags of chocolate chips (12oz each) (I used 1 bag of Ghiradelli semisweet and 1 bag of Sunspire dark 65% cocoa chips)
Sea salt for topping

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, mix (by hand) the sugars, soft butter, vanilla and eggs. Add the flour, baking soda and kosher salt and mix again. Mix in the chips. Refrigerate dough for at least one hour (don’t skip this). Scoop whatever size cookie you prefer onto a parchment covered cookie sheet, sprinkle with sea salt (just a few grains per cookie).  I use my fingers and pinch about 1.5 – 2 teaspoons of dough into a ball and bake for 8 minutes. This will result in a mini, bite-size cookie.  If you’re going for minis and you think your dough ball is too small, it’s probably just right. Be sure to keep an eye on them because they can burn easily when they’re this small. Of course, if your cookie is larger, increase the baking time by a few minutes.

Tips:

1. Do NOT soften your butter using a heat source. Meaning, no microwave, stove, oven, etc. Just let it be. It needs to get to room temperature on its own. I promise you a flat cookie if you apply heat in any form.
2. Mix by hand. I find electric mixers over mix the dough and break up the chips.
3. This recipe makes over 100 cookies. But remember, they’re mini. The original was meant to make about 60 cookies. The number of cookies you get will depend on your scooping size… and how many “taste tests” you run.