These chewy, gooey, Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies are adapted from the notoriously awesome Milk Bar in New York City. They have the perfect crispy edged, chewy-in-the-middle texture thanks to a couple not-so-secret ingredients.
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Cook Time25 minutesmins
Total Time40 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 30to 35 small cookies (or 12 large cookies)
8ounces(2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and just warm to the touch
¾cuppacked light brown sugar
½cupgranulated sugar
1large egg
2teaspoonsvanilla extract
1 ¾cupsall-purpose flour
2tablespoonsnonfat milk powder
1 ¼teaspoonskosher salt
½teaspoonbaking powder
¼teaspoonbaking soda
1(12 ounce) bag semisweet chocolate chips
Coarse sea salt
Instructions
Heat the oven to 375°F.
With a wooden spoon or sturdy spatula, mix together the butter and both sugars in a large bowl, until homogenous, about 1 minute. Add the egg and vanilla and stir until combined, about 1 minute.
Mix in the flour, milk powder, salt, baking powder, and baking soda until just combined, about 30 seconds. Add the chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed, about 30 seconds. (If your dough is exceptionally wet, it’s a factor of too-hot melted butter. Throw it in the fridge for a few minutes to firm up before baking.)
To Make Small Cookies:
Use a level #40 (1 ½ tablespoon capacity) cookie scoop to portion out the dough 2 inches apart onto 3 parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Sprinkle the tops with coarse sea salt. Bake the first two sheets together in the oven, rotating from top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking, about 12 to 13 minutes total. Bake the lone third cookie sheet on the middle rack of the oven for about 9 minutes. The cookies should be golden brown at the edges, but still quite pale in the center. The color will even out more as they cool. Cool completely on the pan.
To Make Large Cookies:
Use a a slightly heaping #12 (2 ½ ounce capacity) ice cream/cookie scoop to portion out the dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto 2 parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Sprinkle the tops with coarse sea salt. Bake each sheet one at a time on the center rack of the oven for 14 to 15 minutes, until golden brown at the edges, but still quite pale in the center. The color will even out more as they cool. Cool completely on the pan.
Sometimes when I make the smaller cookies I like to wet my fingers (so they don't stick to the dough) and gently press the tops of the scoops to slightly flatten the cookies before topping with salt. This helps them along to spread in the oven. The large cookies do a good enough job spreading and flattening out on their own. This is personal preference, and the cookies are great either way. Try it both ways and see what you prefer.
To freeze: scoop out the dough as you would to bake, but do not sprinkle the tops with salt. Freeze the scooped balls of dough until frozen solid. Transfer the frozen balls into a freezer bag, and label with the date. Frozen cookie dough can last about 3 months in the freezer. When ready to bake, remove as many balls of dough as you desire, and partially thaw them in the refrigerator (you can bake from a frozen state, but I always feel like they don't spread out as nicely). Sprinkle the tops with salt, and bake as directed in the recipe. You may need an extra minute or two of baking time since the dough will be cold or even partially frozen.
This recipe uses kosher salt (aka cooking salt, kitchen salt, coarse salt outside of the US). If you are using table salt, definitely scale down the salt as that is a saltier type of salt! The type of salt will make a big difference in how salty your food tastes, so keep that in mind.