Just as I was writing up this post, I read that Italian nutritionists recommend eating cookies for breakfast. It made me feel a little less guilty of baking these dark chocolate sea salt cookies early in the morning. 

I seldom buy new everyday-type cookbooks now. My shelf is packed with books and now the floor space next to it has a new pile going. I like to thumb through cookbooks for ideas but I don’t follow them to the T. I’ll change things up based on my mood, what I have at hand or what I spot at the market. Pastry books, though, I tend to stick to the formula with tiny changes (if at all).

I got a brand new cookbook that looks ultra cool (possibly too cool for me – turmeric tonic, anyone?), and has a hipster edge about it. It’s called Everything I Want to Eat (USA | UK | India). With a title like that, I was most intrigued and who wouldn’t want a book that suggestive of everything someone wants to eat. It’s filled with great ideas – cabbage and kumquat salad, tomato stem oil for dressing, sorrel pesto, vanilla bean limeade.  I’ve been meaning to try recipes from it. In order to ease myself into using the book, I started with the Valrhona chocolate and fleur de sel cookie recipe. Just as I began to bake this, I knew I’d baked this before. I quickly pulled out Pierre Hermé’s book and because I was so bent on proving it to myself, I scaled the recipe to ratios and compared and bingo! They turned out to be the same with the minutest variation. These dark chocolate sea salt cookies are indeed Pierre Hermé’s Korova sablé that are a beloved of mine. The only thing I changed was to slightly reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe. Arjun has been having them with a glass of high-fat Jersey milk whenever I bake them.

These dark chocolate sea salt cookies are crisp and buttery with the high amount of cocoa adding an acidic zing to it. If you want them softer bake them for 10 minutes instead of 12.

Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies

Adapted from Everything I Want to Eat (USA | UK | India) /  Paris Sweets (USA |UK |India)

250g flour
55g cocoa powder
8g baking soda
Pinch of sea salt
225g butter
165g brown sugar
40g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g dark chocolate (preferable 70% Valrhona)
Maldon sea salt or fleur de sel

1. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
2. In a bowl beat together the butter and sugars until light and very fluffy.
3. Fold the dry ingredients into the butter mixture.
4. When a few streaks of dry ingredients remain, fold in the chopped dark chocolate and continue to mix until evenly distributed.
5. Wrap to form a log with plastic film and refrigerate until firmed up, about 2 hours. You can also freeze the logs upto 2 months.
6. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F).
7. Slice the cookies into even rounds of about 40-50g, place them spaced apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment, sprinkle with sea salt and bake for 12 minutes. Pull out from the oven and let it cool on the tray for 10 minutes until they have firmed up enough then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling