Tiny, Salty, Chocolaty Cookies
- Total Time
- 20 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:24 cookies
- 6tablespoons unsalted butter (¾ stick)
- 2½cups confectioners’ sugar
- ¾cup unsweetened cocoa powder (it's worth investing in high-quality cocoa powder, since that’s mostly what you’ll be tasting here)
- 1teaspoon kosher salt
- 2large egg whites
- 1large egg
- 8ounces bittersweet chocolate (at least 67 percent cacao), chopped
- ½cup finely chopped hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, pecans or walnuts (optional)
- Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon or Jacobsen
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (24 servings)
148 calories; 8 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 21 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 18 grams sugars; 2 grams protein; 83 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Powered byPreparation
- Step 1
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Step 2
Melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat, swirling, until it's starting to foam and brown, 3 to 4 minutes. (Whisk the butter from time to time so that the solids don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.) Let cool.
- Step 3
Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a medium bowl, ridding it of as many lumps as possible. (If you really want to, feel free to sift everything.)
- Step 4
Using a spatula, mix in the egg whites, whole egg and browned butter, stirring until you’ve got a good, smoothish mixture (any small lumps will take care of themselves), followed by the chocolate and any nuts you may want to add.
- Step 5
Using a spoon, drop quarter-size blobs of dough (the texture is really somewhere between a dough and a batter) onto the baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart (they spread a lot). Sprinkle with flaky salt and bake until the cookies have flattened considerably and look baked through and a little wrinkled, 6 to 8 minutes. Let cool before eating so they can firm up.
Tip
- Cookies can be baked up to 2 days ahead, wrapped tightly, and stored at room temperature.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Randy
Don't over-think this folks, looking for extra steps. Just follow the recipe as written and enjoy it. Believe her when she says they are salty, that's part of the experience. It is a very simple, easy and delicious recipe. @smgord: Rather than freeze the dough in bulk, portion it out as directed and freeze. When frozen, store the disks in a ziplock bag. When you're ready to bake they will thaw quickly or you can bake from frozen and add 2 or 3 minutes to the baking time.
MC.Delpech
I would be so grateful if the NYT could systematically specify weight alongside volume. What’s the weight of 2.5 cups of confectioner’s sugar? Thank you.
Jen
The King Arthur Flour website has an incredibly comprehensive ingredient weight chart. On that, 2C of unsifted confectioners sugar is 8 oz./227 grams.
Sandhya
Is the chocolate really supposed to be in chopped chunks before baking -- i.e., not mixed with the hot mixture in step 2?
lindsay
Very easy and yummy. Don’t try to bake these on a silpat. They turn into a sticky mess. Came out perfectly on parchment.
karen small
I too wish the site would move to gram weights, especially for bakery and pastry. Baking in cup measures seems archaic to me at this point and less reliable as well.
Vivian Olkin
Because there is no flour, this can be used for Passover or for those who need gluten free.
Lois
The chef’s description of this cookie is perfect. I was skeptical at first because I tasted a warm one and it seemed sort of one note. Critical to let them cool and WOW, It has a chewiness combined with a delicate crispiness of the edges. I added sliced almonds. My new FAV cookie.
JJ
These cookies are incredibly sweet, overwhelmingly so in my case, as the main ingredients are confectioner's sugar and chocolate. They taste like salty brownies, with a crispy bottom and a chewy middle. The recipe was easy enough to follow, although I take issue with them calling this a 20 minute recipe when it asks that you brown butter and cool the butter before mixing it in, took me closer to 40 min. Also, dropping the dough in "quarter-sized blobs" will yield far more than 24, more like 60.
Liz
These are easy and delicious. I do agree with one comment above that the taste is a bit flat, even with all the salt. I added a teaspoon of espresso powder after tasting the first batch. That really deepened the flavor. You can’t taste the coffee—they just taste better. Not necessary if you don’t have it but a real boost if you do. The texture is amazing! I baked these in a confection oven and found I needed the entire 8 minutes of cooking time—less and they are more soft than chewy.
Jenny
DEAR GOD let the butter cool. I learned the hard way... I was sleepy and in a rush to sleep, and added warm butter, and man oh man the result was super flat cookies that stuck to the parchment. DELICIOUS taste, but hideous and unable to be served. Will try again with properly cooled butter, as well as possibly putting the dough in the fridge for a bit and possibly adding espresso powder.
LEC
Based on my experience with similar recipes, the egg white is NOT beaten to soft or stiff peaks- it's just added "as is" and stirred/mixed into the batter. As a result (and because there's no chemical leavener in the recipe), the resulting cookies are flat.
Stephanie
Made them this afternoon. Delicious. Put the second batch in the fridge to cool completely-made a big difference in getting them off the parchment paper with all of the chocolatey deliciousness intact. !st batch didn't release nicely.
MK
Any recommended brands for the high quality cocoa powder?
smgord
Can the dough be frozen? If so, how best to bake later? Just a few extra minutes in oven?
SueNJ
I made these and they were excellent. Even better the second and third day. I chopped the chocolate and almonds by hand, so it was a total pain. I will skip the nuts next time. I use Scharfenberger 70% chocolate and it was perfect. The chopped nuts added extra volume so it made way more than 24 cookies.
LK
Quick, easy, delicious and a big hit with my family, what more could you want? Plus one pan and one bowl, easy cleanup. Taste like brownies, will be adding this recipe to my regular rotation! (Quarter size portions of batter made closer to 60 cookies, not 24. Found that smaller was better)
bee g
Followed recipe exactly, big hit at a dinner party. I used chopped pistachios, which I think added texture but little flavor, and a teaspoon of expresso powder. I dropped scant tablespoons from a cookie scoop, and refrigerated briefly before baking. They spread perfectly but not too much, producing 48 cookies. I do agree with some reviewers about sweetness, will make again but will cut the sugar; I think 2 cups are enough.
bee g
i tried this recipe again using 2 cups of confectioners sugar and increasing cocoa powder by a half cup. All else as recipe. This time the taste was perfect but they didn't spread at all, so the outside is crisp but the centers are quite molten. Maybe they didn't spread because of the smaller amount of sugar?
Juneberry
Cannot recommend - this recipe really isn’t worth the time. They are finicky, fragile and way too sweet. There are much better chocolate cookie recipes available.
Susigaj
They aren't tiny or flat. They taste delicious. They resemble brownies in my opinion. The recipe said 24 cookies so I put 12 drops of batter on 2 cookies sheets. I cooked them for about 10 minutes. They were not flat or wrinkled. I'd make them again.
Jacquelin
This recipe is very sweet and next time I'll add more salt flakes for contrast.
jessie
These cookies are super finicky. Half the time they don’t turn out and get so stuck in your teeth that it makes the cookie-eating experience less than enjoyable. But when they turn out they are great! Not sure what the problem is but it’s a hit and miss recipe for me
Laura T
These taste great. I did cut back the salt a bit to make more palatable for my 10-year old. I tried not to overbake, but as a result were still quite gooey even after cooling.
alice
Deffo let batter chill a bit, made 33 cookies with the scoop, would prefer smaller portions next time
RG
More like silver dollar blobs and only 8-10min
emma
Use as cookie dough (DO NOT BAKE)!! Instead of eggs use 2T flax and 7T water
KL
Salted nuts or unsalted? Salted I presume as refs were made to these being salty?
DrPat
Not planning to make these again, sadly. Too sweet and too much work: the only baked items in years that glued themselves to my silicone mats - a first! A real job to scrub off.
Mag
I find these cookies disturbingly addictive. I made them according to the recipe. They need more baking time than the recipe notes and I ended up with 3 dozen, not 2. I agree with others that they are a bit one note, I find them too sweet, and there are many other cookies I make that I like more than these. But for some reason I can’t stop eating them. Salty, chewy, so chocolatey. Yum.
HJM
I tried This recipe as is.The cookies tasted heavenly but a rad sweet. I will increase the cocoa powder to 1 cup to cut down on the sweetness. and increase the nuts to 1 cup.
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