I had been seeing Alison Roman's Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies all over social media for what seems like forever. I finally decided to give the recipe a try to see what all the fuss was about.
The recipe is straightforward. You cream cold salted butter (I used Kerrygold) with granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy; add all purpose flour; and mix in chocolate chunks. I was a little lazy and just used Cacao Barry Extra-Bitter Guayaquil 64% pistoles instead of chopping up block chocolate. I divided the dough into two parts and formed each half into a log that I wrapped in parchment paper and plastic wrap. I chilled the dough overnight; sliced it into cookies; and brushed the outside of each cookie with beaten egg before rolling the edges in turbinado sugar. I sprinkled the cookies with Maldon salt before baking.
I regret using the pistoles instead of chopped chocolate for these cookies. The large size of the pistoles made the chocolate prone to falling out of the dough as I cut through it; fortunately, I was able to replace the pieces that fell out and get fairly round and neat-looking cookies. For some reason the pistoles were not evenly distributed throughout the dough, and I think the cookies would have been more attractive if they had irregular chunks of chocolate instead of the slender and uniform pistole cross-sections.
But my poor choice of chocolate didn't stop these cookies from being freakin' delicious. They were deeply buttery, satisfyingly firm, richly chocolate-y, sweet, salty, and nicely crunchy from the sugar around the edges. The brown sugar in the dough made these cookies taste like a heavenly hybrid of buttery shortbread and chocolate chip cookies.
I am definitely going to make this shortbread again and I will be sure to use chopped chocolate chunks in the dough. I see now why everyone loves these cookies; they are simple but so scrummy!
Recipe: "Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies" from Dining In by Alison Roman, printed in The New York Times.
The recipe is straightforward. You cream cold salted butter (I used Kerrygold) with granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy; add all purpose flour; and mix in chocolate chunks. I was a little lazy and just used Cacao Barry Extra-Bitter Guayaquil 64% pistoles instead of chopping up block chocolate. I divided the dough into two parts and formed each half into a log that I wrapped in parchment paper and plastic wrap. I chilled the dough overnight; sliced it into cookies; and brushed the outside of each cookie with beaten egg before rolling the edges in turbinado sugar. I sprinkled the cookies with Maldon salt before baking.
But my poor choice of chocolate didn't stop these cookies from being freakin' delicious. They were deeply buttery, satisfyingly firm, richly chocolate-y, sweet, salty, and nicely crunchy from the sugar around the edges. The brown sugar in the dough made these cookies taste like a heavenly hybrid of buttery shortbread and chocolate chip cookies.
I am definitely going to make this shortbread again and I will be sure to use chopped chocolate chunks in the dough. I see now why everyone loves these cookies; they are simple but so scrummy!
Recipe: "Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies" from Dining In by Alison Roman, printed in The New York Times.
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