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When I worked in the restaurant business, if you happened to walk in during staff meal, you could always tell who were the pastry people: we were the ones dousing our food with vinegar and salt. That is, when we had time to sit down and eat. I like sweets, but I like them tempered with something not-necessarily sweet, which is why sometimes you’ll see a squeeze of lemon juice added to a fruit ice cream base or bakers like me include a pinch of salt in batter, to balance things out.

For many years, salted butter was banished from most baking recipes, since the amounts varied by brand and unsalted butter was said to be fresher; the theory was that salt is a preservative adding it to butter may mean the butter is older. In France, you can get the most wonderful salted butter at not just fromageries, but in supermarkets, which usually say on the package that the butter has cristaux de sel de mer, big crystals of sea salt, and they note which region the salt is harvested from as well, giving it provenance.

butter

Personally, I love the crunch of salt in my food, especially the wispy fleur de sel, which isn’t particularly salty but is more mineral-tasting. I love it. And since I don’t eat pre-packaged foods, I know with almost pin-point accuracy how much salt I am eating when I sprinkle it on things myself*.

Although I use this butter a lot for eating, it’s not specifically intended for baking, unless you’re from Brittany where salted butter is the norm in their pastries, such as Kouign Amann and the famously buttery gâteau Breton. In France, we get the most wonderful salted butter (beurre demi sel), which is available with those big, recognizable crystals of salt in it. In fact the other morning I was salting…er, I mean, buttering my morning toast and a crystal of salt fell off the bread and hit the plate with an audible plink and startled me. Salted butter has a more distinct buttery taste and I’m using it more and more in baking, although I have to temper that with the fact that salted butter varies wildly from place to place, so in most recipes, I still generally call for unsalted butter.

Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe

I was unwrapping some butter the other day and noticed a recipe on it for cookies aux noix et chocolat. Normally in French, ‘cookies‘ means ‘chocolate chip cookies’, and indeed this recipe called for chocolate, but later in the recipe said to “add the chocolat fondu” and although there was no indication that the chocolate gets melted, and since they were les cookies (ie: chocolate chip cookies), I was more than a bit confused—which happens around here from time to time. And while I thought it would be fun to translate and present a recipe from a French butter wrapper, I decided it best to start afresh.

Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe

I use either fleur de sel or gray sea salt in these cookies, since those are what I keep on hand and they’re inexpensive in France. Still, being frugal, I buy the less-expensive very coarse gray salt and grind it down myself. For those of you with a life, other salts that are similar are Maldon and kosher salt, respectively, (although according to Deb, all kosher salts aren’t the same) but you can use whatever flaky salt you like.

Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • 4 ounces (115g) salted butter, at room temperature
  • 2/3 cup (110g) packed dark or light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg, at room temperature
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/3 cup (180g) flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt or kosher salt
  • 1 1/3 cups (200g) coarsely chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
  • 1 cup toasted nuts, coarsely chopped
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer, or by hand, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar just until smooth and creamy.
  • Beat in the egg and the vanilla.
  • In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
  • Stir the flour mixture into the beaten butter until combined, then mix in the chopped chocolate (including any chocolate dust) and the chopped nuts.
  • Cover and chill the batter until firm. (It’s preferable to let it rest overnight in the refrigerator.)
  • To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
  • Form the cookie dough into rounds about the size of a large unshelled walnut. Place the mounds evenly spaced apart on the baking sheets, and press down the tops to flatten them so they are no longer domed and the dough is even.
  • Bake the cookies for ten minutes, rotating the baking sheet midway during baking, until the cookies look about set, but are not browned.
  • Remove from the oven and quickly tap the top of each with a spatula, then return to the oven for two to five more minutes, until the tops of the cookies are light golden brown.
  • Remove from oven and let cookies cool.

Notes

Storage: The cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to five days in an airtight container. The dough can be refrigerated for up to one week or frozen for one or two months.

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Peanut Butter Cookies with Salted Butter Caramel

Ready for Dessert Note: Using Chopped Chocolate

Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream

The Difference Between Baking Powder and Baking Soda

Chocolate FAQs

Salted Butter Caramels

How to Find Items and Foods Mentioned on the Site

American Baking in Paris


*For those concerned about salt consumption, I don’t eat Big Macs (1040 mg of salt) or canned tomato soup (480 mg of salt), and generally avoid pre-packaged or fast foods with are usually loaded with salt.

According to the American Heart Association, the normal adult should consume about 1 teaspoon (2300 mg) of salt per day, which is close to the amount in this recipe for twenty-four cookies, factoring in a little extra sodium in the baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). Of course, ask a medical professional for advice about salt consumption if you have concerns or health issues.


83 comments

    • chika

    hello david – yum cookies!! i’ll admit that i used to bake with salted butter for any recipe that calls for the unsalted, partly because it was often the only choice i had without great supermarket around me, and partly because i was just being lazy. i never really had any problem – maybe because i liked the way things tasted a bit salty. though i now do buy unsalted butter for baking, i still enjoy baked goods with a good kick of saltiness in them. bet these are excellent, too!

    • Mrs Redboots

    I absolutely adore the Brittany butter you are showing a picture of – it’s one of the things I stock up on when I visit France. You can get similar butter in our local supermarket, but it costs considerably more than ordinary salted butter (which, here, is the norm – unsalted butter says so on the wrapper; if it doesn’t say, you know it’s salted) and would be rather too extravagant to use in cooking, or in anything other than spread on some delicious base…..

    Your cookies do look good, though!

    • Fabrice E.

    Nice to see all these french words in your article, it just remind everyone how much we like cooking in France… It is very true that the “gateau breton” is infamously buttery :) Cheers!

    • Elemjay

    Hello David – can I ask about tapping the top of the cookies with a spatula – what does this do? My guess is it would stop them getting too puffy, but perhaps there is something else to it as well?

    • Erin

    these look splendid! salted butter isn’t sold here in switzerland (that i’m aware of) so each time i make a trip over the border – to france – i grab a few delicious, salty bricks. and then proceed to bake lots and lots of cookies, because these are the recipes i most enjoy using salted butter for. mmmmm! i will definitely give this recipe a try, thank you for sharing!

    • The Blue-Eyed Bakers

    Being complete salt addicts these cookies look just perfect to us. We’re suckers for the salty/sweet (and chocolate-y) combo. And now we might need to start salting our toast…

    • sarah commerford

    Wow – I MUST try these! I have at least 8 different kinds of sea salt on my counter as I write: black (like tiny beautiful, shinny nuggets of coal), pink, red, flake, Hawaiian…I get a lot of flake – I mean, flack, for my salt fetish, but like you, I don’t eat processed foods so I don’t worry. Thanks sharing the recipe-Your writing style is terrific. When I was a kid, we lived in a tiny apartment in the 14em arrondisement on Rue Liard. My mom would send me downstairs to the grocer to buy butter, and then next door for THE best baguettes and mini eclaires EVER. I can smell and taste it like it was yesterday. btw – gave you a shout out in my (amateurish) blog last night :)-I can only aspire to your level of foodieblogness.

    • Marie aka Gardenfreshtomatoes

    Aaahhh, French butter! One of my favorite things… How many more days until I get back to Paris?

    Thanks for this recipe, David – looks like just thing for a sweet/salt fan!

    • Cajun Chef Ryan

    David, I bet the kosher salt might add some extra savory to the cookie too! Even a sprinkling of a few crystals on top before baking might be fun too!

    =:~)

    • Hannah

    You had me at salted butter. Hell, you’ll always have me at salted butter…

    • Vicki B

    “cristaux de sel de mer” – Why does everything always sound better in French?

    • Becky and the Beanstock

    Yes, salt. How I wish I did not enjoy it to the degree that I do, but I fear it is my downfall. Generally speaking I can take or leave the chocolate, the ice cream, the donut, but when you throw some salt into it it becomes dangerous. I’m presently addicted to salted caramels, so I have a feeling that I’ll be trying out this recipe soon enough.

    • David

    Becky: For some reason, I always feel like when there’s a bit of salt on my dessert, I feel like I’ve eaten more or had a fuller experience. I think I’ve gotten used it to on things; do try it on a bit of chocolate (ice cream or just plain chocolate) with a small amount of olive oil poured on top. It’s heaven.

    Ryan: I did try a few with fleur de sel sprinkled over the top, but I didn’t like them as much as I did when inside.

    mrs. redboots: Folks can approximate this kind of butter at home by just letting good butter soften then kneading fleur de sel, or another flaky sea salt, into it. Then letting it firm up again.

    elemjay: Aside from preventing the cookies from doming up too much (with slice and bake cookies, that doesn’t really happen), patting them down flattens them nicely. But it also compacts the crumb so that the cookies stay nice and chewy, the way I like them.

    • Erin

    These look delicious! I made your zaletti last week and really loved them– lovely flavours and texture, and not at all too sweet.

    A question: Why would you chill the dough overnight (or at all)? Is it just to make the dough easier to handle or is there some other reason? I’ve always baked cookies as soon as the batter is mixed. Thanks!

    • Jess

    David, your timing is impeccable! I just picked up my first box of Maldon two days ago for sprinkling over heirloom tomatoes, and I’ve been thinking, “I wonder how I might use this in baking…” Now I know. Thanks!

    • Susan

    French salted butter is SOOOO good — even the cheaper brands have those irresistible flakes of salt that surprise you. When I get around to trying this recipe at home in the US, though, I’ll use good unsalted butter and add the extra salt so I can use the best quality of salt, maybe fleur de sel plus some Malden flakes.

    Whenever I see “cookies” in a patisserie I have to fight the urge to order one in a Cookie Monster voice. Except that I have never yet bought one because to me a sable with chocolate chips doesn’t quite cut it.

    • Cyndy

    David, how much fleur de sel would you recommend kneading into, say, a pound of good unsalted butter here in the USA?

    • Cooking in Mexico

    David, you’re killing us! The photo of the chocolate cake with gooey chocolate frosting, and now this! If I become a raving chocoholic, it is totally your fault!

    • Julie @ Willow Bird Baking

    I love the addition of salt in baked goods, as well — just adds almost a buttery taste sometimes that’s so delicious. These cookies look amazing!

    • the urban baker

    I am going to make these right now. I need cookies and other desserts for a Saturday “thing” and these will be perfect!

    • margie

    I have a contstant battle with my husband about salt in baked goods. He never wants to put it in: “What’s the point?” he asks. “Flavor,” I reply. He says that he doesn’t want his sweets to be salty. And he wonders why my cookies are better than his…

    At the same time, you never see him arguing when I make caramel corn with salted peanuts, and that’s about as salty as a sweet can get. I think that desserts made without salt lack any sort of depth of flavor.

    In other news, I have run out of fleur de sel, sel gris, and kosher salt – I’m having a salt emergency!

    • Phoo-d

    I love salted butter so much I have pretty much stopped buying any other kind. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one! Of course it isn’t filled with lovely sea salt but it still works wonderfully in most baked goods if you tweak the other salt amounts. Now you have me thinking about making my own butter so I can incorporate good salt!

    • Susan

    There’s something about baked goods that use brown sugar that really seem to need the extra salt. (Oatmeal needs plenty extra, too.) I keep salted butter to use at the table, and have European style unsalted butter that I use for baking. I use kosher salt and haven’t gotten much into the hand harvested salts because I’m kind of afraid of water from which they are harvested. People throw trash and boats leak oil and others dump all kinds of other stuff into natural bodies of water. How do you know the source of this salt is not harmful?

    • Lindy

    I am going to make these right now before I go to work! My children will have them all “inhaled” before I get home…………otherwise, I will gain all the weight I’ve lost thus far. So, my children thank you from the bottom of their (hunger for sweets) hearts!

    • Marlene

    David! Are you on a sugar high these days? Wow! I can barely keep up with reading your blog. I keep bookmarking, finding other Web sites to check out (Babycakes ships! Hurray!) You have been absolutely prolific with your posts.

    This really isn’t a complaint! Sounds like one, huh? But, must say ever since you got to NYC you’ve been amazing. Luv it!

    Salt. Fleur de sel! Beurre! Bring it on. The cookies, definitely on the to-do list ASAP

    A few years back, knowing a young French friend was a chocoholic of the first degree, I took a small package of Fran’s (from Seattle) chocolate-covered caramels with a sprinkle of fleur de sel as a small gift to her. At first, the reaction was ‘what is this,” which quickly changed to like. My friend does draw the line at chocolate & bacon.

    P.S. my other passion is Black Pepper with a snap! Discovered potato chips with sea salt and black pepper recently. Ruffles begone!

    • Suzanne

    Is there a better taste combination than salt and semisweet chocolate? Nope. I can’t wait to try this recipe!

    • Terrianne

    Before I started paying more attention to recipes, I always baked with salted butter. I preferred the taste of chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies with salted butter.

    • Emily Rose

    I spent a semester in Nantes when I was a Junior in college and I fell in love with French butter. I never ever used to butter my bread before living in France and by the time I left I was buttering my crackers (my host family insisted I try it)! I miss the butter and think about the amazing salt crystals all the time!

    • Erin in CA

    As a long-time salted-butter-only eater and baker, this post has convinced me to go on a fleur de sel butter hunt! I recently noticed that my local Asian grocery carries several brands of frozen European butter. Maybe I’ll have luck there.

    • Motoko

    Ahhh…salt. Those cookies look divine, I will have to make them! You are such a wealth of information about baking, thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, research, and being willing to share.

    Speaking of salt, growing up in So. California (with a Mexican dad) we ate a lot of food with chili salt, so good. My dad would also lightly sprinkle some salt on fresh pineapple and orange slices; the salt would magnify the flavor of the fruit so nicely. I never understood why, it just did. One of my favorite food memories is getting fresh tortillas from a tortilleria, heating one over the open flame, slathering on some butter, then a sprinkle of salt. Perfection.

    • Jean Marie

    I sort of did this by accident last week and loved it. I made Nutella cookies (from Simpy Recipes – SO good) and, without thinking, put coarse sea salt in the batter instead of fine. Not all of the crystals broke down during baking and there are delicious little salty pockets in the cookies. Don’t you love it when mistakes work out? Or maybe subconsciously I did it on purpose.

    • krysalia

    what’s not to love about salted butter ? :)
    I’m used to make such home made salted butter with flaky sea salt, it’s delicious. I usually put 3% of salt crystals, but of course any amount would do.
    I strongly prefer this butter with flaky crystals of salt (home-made or industrial) because I think that the butter-y flavors are left intact. In the regular salted butter we can buy in France, I feel like the salty taste is slightly overwhelming. I prefer to feel the taste of marvelous butter AND, sometimes, finding a salt flake under my teeth.

    The recipe made me laugh, I love the idea to tap the top of the head of each cookie. It’s just as if you were sayin’ : “good work kid | keep up the good cooking process | i’m proud of you, go on | good for service !” :D !

    • lisa

    these sound delicious! I prefer salty with sweet in my cookies/baked goods. Case in point: Dorie G’s World Peace Cookies. YUM.

    I have a chocolate chunk cookie recipe where I use 1/2 tsp+ of fleur de sel, but I want to make these. I wonder if they sell the beurre demi sel here in NYC. Or perhaps I can find it somewhere….Hrmmm.

    :)

    • Tammi Marie

    I made these yesterday, and they are my new all time favorite cookie!!! They are amazing. I brought my Mom some today and she said she will be dreaming about them tonight.
    :)

    • G.

    salted butter for my cookies? yes, please. NOW. they will be happy.

    • Kristina

    I’ve always used salted butter for baking and it’s turned out well for me, although good butter and salt are new discoveries and I can’t believe I’ve lived without them this long. I never met a chocolate chip cookie I didn’t like, and this one needs to be tried pronto! I will resist the urge to worship you now.

    • Dina Avila

    These look perfect.
    My mom is from Hawaii and I have fond childhood memories of us standing over the kitchen sink eating gently salted fresh mango. Perfect marriage of salt and sweet.
    Probably explains why I always up the salt a bit when baking. And always use salted butter.
    Thanks for delicious recipe!

    • Sandy

    Chocolate chip cookies are the ONLY baked good i make with salted butter. They are just so much better with it. So glad you feel the same!

    • Cathy

    Thanks for posting this! I was going to make my go to batch of chocolate chip cookies for a work function, but this popped up yesterday (the day I was going to make it). I made the batter last night, baked it tonight, and it tastes so good!

    I guess I made them a little smaller. I used my cookie scoop and got 32 cookies. Baked for about 8 mins, tapped, then 2 more mins.

    • Skippy

    I’ve been a fan of salty sweet since I started surreptitiously mixing pretzels into chocolate ice cream as a very little kid. Off the butter topic, do you subscribe to the belief that’s popped up in the last year or two that chocolate chip cookies are improved by letting the dough rest for a day before baking?

    • Amy H

    Excellent cookies, thanks!! I love salty and sweet combinations, so I ran to make these tonight as soon as I read the recipe. But I was lazy, and I used raw walnuts instead of toasted as in the recipe. Now, I’m wondering what the difference would be between toasted and raw in the finished cookies….Is it just a matter of taste?

    • Ruby R

    Ah thank you david! No one has ever really understood the, albeit extravagant, amounts of salt a adore to add to all my sweets. Rich chocolate cakes in particular i feel are brilliant with extra sea salt and I adore to sprinkle that crunchy salt over apple tarts, mousse and sorbets. Also anything fruit based a great squeeze of lemon!!! Your biscuits look absolutely divine, thank you so much for inspiring me each and every day with your brilliant creations!!

    • brenda

    yum! I was going to make cookies Wednesday night, and so this came at the right time, so I made them with chocolate and whole hazelnuts. Same butter, and some greyish sea salt, and oh! I love the little crunchy bits of salt! Perfect chewiness!

    • Gabi

    We are always adding salt to our desserts. My fiance is Indian and their tastes tend more towards salting than I accustomed to. I often put pepper on fruit slices, but salt on fruit is so strange to me!

    But that got me wondering, can you make a peppered chocolate chip cookie? Not chili pepper, but black or pink pepper.

    • Neomi

    I just made these cookies and even though the taste is INCREDIBLE —seriously maybe the best ccc I’ve ever tasted— they spread out SO much while baking–sort of like little puddles. I wonder what I did wrong…. I did not reduce or change anything other than use chocolate chips instead of chopping chocolate. (Could that have caused it? ) and the dough was resting overnight in the fridge so I started out with stiff dough.

    • Shari

    David, I’m wondering why you “quickly tap” the top of the cookies with the spatula before putting them back in the oven for a few minutes? Also, are you using an electric or gas oven?

    I answered that in response to a similar comment above. -dl

    • Bernadette

    David can these be made with the nuts optional? They look terrific!

    Check the previous post on baking substitutions and nuts. I haven’t tried them without but they should work. If you do make them without, let us know how they turn out. -dl

    • Ruby R

    Just made these beautiful biscuits but I riskily added a brown sugar and butter (salted of course) caramel folded through so it hardened into crispy chunks. Luckily it turned out absolutely BEAUTIFULLY! I definately will try without my extra caramel because they are extremely rich! Delicious recipe though, definately a keeper. Thanks!

    • Nic

    Great! These look divine. I’m always interested in new recipes for cookies – I’m a bit of an addict I feel. Will be sure to give these beasts a go – They look divine! Thanks for posting.

    Nic

    • Cristina

    I love eating bread…bread with butter. The butter has to be cold and salted. It makes a difference!

    I’m ready for a new chocolate chip cookie recipe and using salted butter and using a sea salt must make a great difference. Looking forward to trying this!

    • Robin (Hippo Flambe)

    I have a batch of these cookies resting in the fridge right now. However I have already spotted a grievous error with the recipe as written. I am clearly going to get far to few cookies to share any with my family, and yet the recipe addresses the possibility of leftover dough.

    • The Duo Dishes

    There’s no use in making this until we have a stick of that French salted butter. Our American butter just won’t do!

    • Liza Ramli

    I just made them and my son thinks they are simply amazing. I cut up the chocolate so that they’re literally in little chunks and I used pecans. Butter was Irish. Won’t hurt with a little more of the salt, methinks. Mine was the pink Himalayan kind. They spread so don’t look as nice as in your picture. That’ll teach me not to read the tips.

    • cmf

    I made these for my Sustainable Ag get together. Sadly, they are gone, but they were glorious while they lasted!

    • Kate

    Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! They’re good.

    • ellen

    wow, these are GOOD!! made them today with dark brown sugar, generic store brand salted butter and 70% scharffen barger. insanely good after chilling 24 hours, going to see what 48 hours does to them. i have to say, i’m a big fan of the NY Times ones..i know you said in your new book that you don’t think they’re “all that.” they’re different, though…yours are chewier..i like both – these definitely easier (only one type of flour, thank you david!).
    i lost 20 lbs this year but i think i may gain back half if i keep baking these off – help!!!

      • David
      David Lebovitz

      hi Ellen: I didn’t try the ones in the NYTimes, which I am sure is a great recipe, too. It’s just that I like my recipe so much that I never thought of trying another : )

      (Although I did adapt the technique of letting the dough sit overnight, which I normally did out of habit.)

    • molly

    Full circle, this.

    I switched to using salted butter in all my baking years ago, when I finally noticed that every pound of unsalted butter I bought, even at the best of stores, included a thick band of off-color around each cube. I finally took a taste one day, and it was palpably off-tasting, as well. Old and rancid at the edges! I realized, at that point, that although in theory the salted stuff can keep longer, in reality it flies off the shelves much faster than the unsalted. I’ve never looked back.

    Plus, I love a little twinge of salt lick with my chocolate!

    • Victoria

    I made this this weekend and while they were delicious right out of the oven, they turned into hockey pucks when completely cooled. I’m wondering what I did wrong? The cookies did not burn and they still tasted great, but the texture was more potato chip than chocolate chip.

    PS – Love the chocolate peanut butter ice cream in your book. Literally life-changing!

    • David
    David Lebovitz

    Neomi, Victoria, and Liza: It’s interesting that some of your said they spread, while Victoria’s cookies were too firm. Perhaps you three can confab to find out what the differences were?

    • Ken Sloan

    I tried this recipe but omitted the nuts (a moth infestation ruined all the nuts in my pantry for me!) and used two kinds of chocolate chunks. Delicious, but I actually didn’t get the salt as much as I thought I would. Will have to do a more chocolatey cookie next time.

    • Cindi

    As always, a great recipe. Not a fan of the chocolate dust, though, so I use Cacao Berry chocolate pistoles and Texas pecans.

    Made your butterscotch pecan ice cream last week… it flew out of the freezer. Thanks for that, too!

    • Allie

    I made these last night and they are delicious! Usually I don’t alter recipes but since I baked them for camping trip snacks instead of dessert, I almost cut the sugar in half. And they came out great! Just thought I’d report, in case anyone was wondering about using less sugar.

    • renée

    hello david! thank you for this terrific recipe — i have been enjoying more and more adding sprinkles of good quality salt to my sweets and baked goods… i am looking forward to trying this recipe out (making the dough tonight, baking the cookies tomorrow)… I am thinking about using the cookies for ice cream sandwiches — bake the cookies, let them cool, bring them to the BBQ I am heading to and make the sandwiches on site as we settle into dessert (i.e. I don’t want a frozen cookie)… anything I should change with the baking time (or anything else) given this plan?

    merci!
    renée

    • Sharon

    I discovered this recipe (and blog) just recently. I had never used salted butter in my baking before but after trying out this recipe, I’m hooked! The extra saltiness cut the sweetness of the cookie just enough to keep it from being overwhelming. The only downside to the cookies being overly sweet was that I wanted to eat the whole batch at once!

    • Alanna

    Oh yeah, these look awesome! I love a bit (or a bunch) of salt on or in my sweets – it makes them so addictive. I work as a pastry chef at a San Francisco restaurant where the executive chef puts no salt in his desserts (which, luckily, are few!) That drives me nuts – a little salt is especially necessary in sweets so that they don’t taste cloying.

    I’ve been dreaming about the chocolate chip cookies from your latest book, but you just upped the ante in a major way – I will be making these soon! Thanks for another exquisitely inspiring post, Mr. L!

    • Dessert Darling

    WOW!! I LOVE this post! I’d Just been WONDERING about how much salt to use when baking cookies! Seriously. This entry was perfect for me and I love your whole blog over all :)

    • Liza Ramli

    David, mine spread for the simple reason that over enthusiastic little me overdid it with the mixing. You live and you learn. Am off now to make a whole ton more of them! Wish me luck.

    • yoko

    greatest ever! I made them with my french boyfriend’s little sister (8), it was her first time making cookies from scratch so I am pretty proud to be her teacher, except for the fact that my ghetto stove in my parisian toilet-sized kitchen operates on demon-possessed gas flames with no temperature controls or measurements on the knob, so in the end I wrapped it up and told her to bake it at her home with her mom the next day, which was better in the end because you noted that it needed to be in the fridge overnight! I was telling my boyfriend the other day that since I’ve moved here to paris I have been eating in one month the total amount of butter I would eat in Tokyo in a whole year!! But hey, I actually lost weight…. strange! Must be parce que j’habite au 5eme etage sans ascensur!

    • Alexis

    These are delicious! I ended up getting 36 cookies. I baked them about 9-10 minutes, until they were golden. For the nuts, I used unsalted, roasted cashews. They taste like a very grown-up and sophisticated chocolate chip cookie. I wish I couldn’t find fancy French salted butter, but I just used regular salted butter and sea salt and these were wonderful. I’d like to try them with some black lava salt or perhaps pink sea salt. Thank you for the delicious cookies!

    • barbra

    i made these today. what a big hit!

    • Margaret

    The dough is resting in the fridge, but I just wanted to say that I tried three recipes so far from Ready for dessert: the Bahamian rum cake, the fresh ginger cake and the amaretti. All three are delicious. Thank you.

    • Nikki Tokar

    I am a chocolate chip cookie baking challenged person so I usually just stick to eating the dough, which in this case was DELICIOUS! Then I attempted to cook them and well they were great right out of the oven but then as they cooled they suffered from my chocolate chip cookie baking curse and got hard and weren’t tasty anymore. Good thing I only cooked a few and left a lot of dough!

    • thefoodsnark

    YUMMY! I’ve always made my chocolate chip cookies with salted butter (I like the salt with the sweet), but have never attempted to use sea salt butter for them before. Those cookies look delicious, I will DEFINITELY be making these as soon as I can get my hands on some really great butter (not so easy in the States, sometimes).

    • Marisa

    These cookies were unbelievably delicious – a perfect blend of salty and sweet. I’m so pleased to come across this blog, all of the entries are wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to write, I look forward to exploring more of your writing and recipes!

    • Marisa

    By the way, I’ve made the dough and frozen it, and it freezes very well. An excellent and dangerous temptation in my freezer. :)

    • Elise

    We just made these tonight for the first time and I can say I am now a total convert to this recipe. These are incredible! I’ve used the Nestle Tollhouse recipe for years, but NO MORE. This is my new recipe. I used a combination of Nestle semisweet chips and Ghirardelli bittersweet chips, and some toasted pecans. I’ve never been a fan of nuts in cookies, but I’m a convert on that too! These are absolutely incredible. Thanks for an awesome recipe!!!!! I can’t wait to make these again.

    • Sharon

    Oh my goodness, these are delicious! I used 1 c. chocolate chips, 1 c. butterscotch chips, and 2/3 c. chopped toasted almonds (1c. seemed like too much when I chopped them up). yummmm!!! thanks for another infallible recipe!

    • lynne

    I made these last night,
    the first batch were more chilled and made a crisper tighter cookie, the second batch had warmed up a bit and spread more on the cookie sheet and were a bit softer and chewy ! Bothe were wonderful , my cousin flies to paris and brings me home the Brittany butter , he calls me a butter snob!! LOL

    • Veronica

    I baked them today, and I have to say they are great, I love to mix the salty and the sweety !!! If you don’t mind I will publish them in my blog. Thanks!

    • Katrina

    I made these a couple days ago and posted them on my blog with all credit to you and a link to here. Great cookies. Love the extra salt! At the time I decided I NEEDED to make these, I didn’t have salted butter, so I used unsalted and added the extra salt suggested. I used a heaping 1/4 teaspoon. Really great cookies, David! Thanks!

    • chloe

    Hi David, I made these cookies, really great taste!
    Just one small question, I guess I probably went wrong with the baking soda. The cookies were really hard instead of being chewy at last.
    According to your experience, it could be due to what problem?
    Many thanks in advance

A

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