Salty-Sweet Butter Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate chip cookies really should be a separate ‘genre’ of baking all on their own.
I know that they’re a classic and with classics people tend to search for that One and Only Holy Grail of a recipe, but in my experience I’ve found that there are so many ways to make a perfect one.
My mom always used to tell me that in both cooking and baking, getting ‘good’ was a matter of getting comfortable with a base recipe and/or technique, then once I grew comfortable with it, experimenting with other flavors and seeing what worked and what didn’t. It’s advice that’s never steered me wrong in the kitchen.
The older I get, the more that I notice that my taste buds tend to prefer a counterbalance to the sweetness with either salt or bitter flavors. Salt and sweet is a combination that I’m growing increasingly interested in using in baking, and today’s recipe was eye-opening in showing me just how well it could work.
A chocolate chip cookie with pecans is already a winner so far as I’m concerned, but this recipe takes things a step further. First, butterscotch, butternut or butter-rum flavor is added to the dough, which I would best describe as a rich browned butter extract that pairs VERY well with chocolate. If you can’t find it in stores, it’s definitely available on Amazon. And if you can’t find it at all, that’s fine too. The cookies will still come out amazing because of the second element.
After the dough is made, chilled and portioned out into balls, it then gets rolled in a mixture of sugar and salt. As it bakes, that sugar and salt creates a sort of crackly, salty-sweet crust on the outside of the cookie.
And y’all: that crust is where the magic happens.
In the first place, it creates amazing texture to contrast with the fudgy, chewy interior of the cookie itself. And second, the flavor of the salt in that sugar crust is INSANE. Taken together with the sweetness of the sugar, the nuttiness of the pecans, and the slight bitterness of the chocolate, it literally hit every note.
I tried these on a whim and I can honestly say they’re my new favorite way to make chocolate chip cookies, and are definitely in my top three of cookies I’ve ever made. They’re well worth trying out.
Wear a mask. Social distance. Get the vaccine when it’s your turn. Be kind.
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Recipe Adapted from King Arthur Flour Ingredients Directions Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets. Place the pecans in a single layer in a pan, and toast until they’ve darkened a bit and smell toasty, about 8 to 9 minutes. Set them aside to cool, then chop coarsely. In a large bowl, combine the sugars, butter, shortening, salt, espresso powder, baking soda, and extracts, beating until smooth and creamy. Beat in the egg, again beating until smooth. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula to make sure everything is thoroughly combined. Mix in the flour, then the chips and toasted nuts. If you’re going to refrigerate the dough, cover the bowl, and refrigerate for about 4 to 5 hours; or overnight. Cookie dough refrigerated for 4 to 5 hours will spread moderately; chilled overnight, it will spread much less. Mix the 1/3 cup sugar and salt for the coating, and put it in a bowl. Use a spoon (or a tablespoon cookie scoop) to scoop 1 1/2″ balls of dough into the sugar/salt mixture, rolling to coat. Then transfer to the prepared baking sheets, leaving 2″ between them on all sides; they’ll spread quite a bit. Or use a teaspoon cookie scoop to scoop 1 1/4″ balls of dough. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes — 10 minutes for smaller cookies made from unrefrigerated dough, 12 for larger cookies whose dough has been refrigerated (and something in between for other iterations of size and refrigeration). Their edges will be chestnut brown and their tops a lighter golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and cool on the pan until they’ve set enough to move without breaking. Repeat with the remaining dough.Salty-Sweet Butter Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Aren’t these lovely!
Trust me, they are SO.GOOD. 😉
Salty and sweet? And chocolate chips? And pecan? YES to all of the above!! Btw, why aren’t your pictures uploading when I’m sharing your posts on Facebook? Do you want to check the connection? Coz I really want to share this.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention Angie. I’m not sure what the problem is, I’m so terrible with technical issues with websites lol but usually, what I do is just post a pic from the post with the actual HTML link just copied/pasted itself rather than letting Facebook’s software sift it out.
Yeah, I kinda “tricked” it to share your banana bread biscuits. But usually the Facebook sharing icon should do the work for you. Check your setting, maybe??
This recipe is saved! Can’t wait!
Awesome, thank you. I think you’re REALLY going to like it 🙂
Awesome, thank you. I think you’re REALLY going to like it 🙂