Receta Rosemary Bourbon Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Smoked Sea Salt; #CreativeCookieExchange
Rosemary Bourbon Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Smoked Sea Salt; #CreativeCookieExchange
February 17, 2015 by Laura 26 Comments
These Rosemary Bourbon Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Pecans and Smoked Sea Salt are unusual enough to be exciting and familiar enough to be comforting. They are also just plain awesome. For more about this month’s boozy Creative Cookie Exchange keep reading down below! Affiliate links were used to link to items I am discussing.
Guys! I may not have re-invented the wheel, but I am really proud of these cookies! Which I guess sounds kinda crazy. But I really went back and forth about adding the rosemary to these. It sounded good to me, but maybe I would be alone in finding them good kind of thing.
Nope. These were a huge hit. Something about rosemary and dark chocolate works really well, and add in the caramel notes from the bourbon and… wow. The smokiness from the salt kind of complements everything rather than standing out super clearly as its own flavor. John and my dad were the true tests for these–they were the ones that might wrinkle their noses at “weird” flavors–and both loved them.
Yay!
Editing these photos is killing me! Chocolate chip cookies–any variation–are one of my true weaknesses. In the future I should write the post while I still have the cookies around to munch on. Because now I am seriously craving chocolate chip cookies!
Like all chocolate chip cookies, the longer you can let your dough rest the better these will be. The first night they were excellent warm from the oven, but the next morning they were no longer out of this world amazing. Whereas the third day I baked them? Unbelievable.
Some notes about ingredients: for the smoked salt, any smoked salt will do–and in a pinch, just use regular coarse sea salt salt. As I noted above, smoked salt is not one of the strong flavors in these cookies. I used a combination of minced fresh rosemary and rosemary salt (a quick search on Amazon tells me there are a lot available, just not the one I own) in the dough. If the rosemary salt is too tricky to get a hold of, you can sub half a teaspoon of dried rosemary (or 1 teaspoon fresh minced) and 1.5 teaspoons of coarse sea salt.
For the chocolate chunks, I decided it was important to use a really good bittersweet chocolate, in order to properly complement the rosemary. So I pulled out my Scharffen Berger 70% Bittersweet Chunks
(the Scharffen Berger Semisweet Chocolate Baking Chunks would be fine as well–I actually had a mix of the 2, but more bittersweet). You can also chop a bar of your favorite dark chocolate–I recommend warming it ever so slightly (maybe 25 seconds on 20% power) in the microwave first so that it will cut into chunks instead of shards.
Rosemary Bourbon Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Smoked Sea Salt Author: TheSpicedLife Recipe type: Dessert Cuisine: Cookies Ingredients
2 cups (8½ oz) AP flour 2 cups (8½ oz) white whole wheat flour 1¼ t baking soda 1½ t baking powder 1½ t rosemary salt (see note above) 2½ sticks (1¼ cups) unsalted butter 1 T minced fresh rosemary 1¼ cups (10 oz) light brown sugar 1 cup plus 2 T (8 oz) granulated sugar 2 large eggs 1 t vanilla 2 T bourbon 3 bags (18 oz total) Scharffenberger Bittersweet Chocolate Chunks (see note above) 1 cup chopped pecans Coarse smoked sea salt for sprinkling (see note above) Instructions
Whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder and rosemary salt in a bowl. Set aside. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter, fresh minced rosemary and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and bourbon. With speed on low, add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Mix in the chocolate chunks and pecans. Cover the dough with something airtight and refrigerate at least overnight (I bake a tray or so a day, until the dough is gone, thereby ensuring fresh cookies each time). When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Using a cookie dough scoop or an ice cream scoop of medium size, scoop the cookies onto the prepared tray, 6 per sheet. I was aiming for 2-3 tablespoons of dough per cookie. Sprinkle the cookies with smoked sea salt and bake until golden brown but still a little soft, about 13-15 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove the cookies individually to a cooling rack. 3.2.2925
The theme this month is Drunken Cookies! Cookies made with booze and/or inspired by booze, we have them all! If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact me at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and I will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links.
You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes–be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts (you can find all of them here at The Spiced Life). You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month! Also, if you are looking for inspiration to get in the kitchen and start baking, check out what all of the hosting bloggers have made: