Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Macrobiotic Sea Salt

This is my go-to cookie recipe (it's even better than the cookies I baked the morning I got married). It's so good that my husband took the recipe with him to his new workplace, a sweet little cafe (The Sunken Chip) on our street and they decided to offer these delightful chocolatey rounds to customers with their morning coffee. These cookies are nothing short of spectacular and if I may be so bold, this is the last chocolate chunk cookie recipe you ever need to bake.

If you have the time, I think you'll agree.

Sea Salt and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes 2 dozen cookies

115g butter
55g raw sugar
170g brown sugar
1 egg
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
225g plain (All Purpose) flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp macrobiotic sea salt
225g good quality dark chocolate, cut into rough chunks
1/4 tsp macrobiotic sea salt or flour de sel, for top of cookies

Using electric beaters set to medium speed, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Mix for about five minutes, scraping the side of the bowl occasionally. Add the egg and continue beating until incorporated. Add the vanilla seeds and beat until combined. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and whisk together before slowly adding the flour mixture to the creamy batter, mixing on low speed. Mix until just combined, then fold in the chocolate chunks. Transfer the batter onto a greaseproof paper baking sheet and roll into a log. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of two hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 180C. Cut rounds of the cookie dough about 1 1/2 tablespoon in volume (I like to smooth the edges of mine and make the centres a little thicker to get that home baked cookie look, as you see in the photos. This is a little more fiddly and not necessary) and arrange on baking paper lined baking tray. Sprinkle with fleur de sel or macrobiotic sea salt and bake for approximately 11 minutes*.

*This is the crucial step. Do not leave those darling cookies. Set a timer on your phone or oven for 10 minutes and hang about. Check the cookies when your timer expires. The cookies are done when the outside edge has just started to change to golden and the centres gently puff. If your cookies aren't quite ready, cook them for a further minute. The centres should look soft and slightly undercooked when you pull them out of the oven. Don't worry that they look undercooked because the heat from the baking tray will continue to cook them and we want those gorgeous, oozy, chewy chocolate centres, with a delicate crunch on the outside.

If you're nervous about overcooking them, trial a test batch first of one or two cookies - it's only fair that you get to eat these cookies as a 'taste test' too.

The salty sprinkles really enhance the chocolate flavour, just be careful not to burn tiny fingers when your cookies come out of the oven. Ours were served warm and were too good to resist!

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