Smoky, salty chocolate chip cookies

In a New York Times article, from 2008, cookie professionals revealed that the secret to better chocolate chip cookies lies in a long prebake chill. This is gospel to me. The resting hydrates the flour in the dough and deepens the flavour and colour. But they’ll still be great if you make and bake straight away. A warm cookie, 20 minutes out of the oven, will always be heartexplodingly good. You can leave the tea out; the cookies will still bake perfectly without it.

MAKES 16 TO 20 COOKIES INGREDIENTS

70g walnuts

170g dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa solids)

240g unsalted butter, cool and pliable

240g light muscovado (or soft brown) sugar

100g demerara sugar

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

50g egg (approx 1 egg) plus 20g egg yolk (from approx 1 egg) 220g plain flour Heaped ½ tsp lapsang souchong tea leaves, finely ground in a spice grinder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ tsp fine sea salt

Sea salt flakes, for the salty sprinkle

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 150C/130C fan/Gas 2. Put the walnuts on a baking tray and toast in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown all the way through. Turn the oven off. Cool the walnuts quickly in the fridge, then coarsely chop. Chop the chocolate into large gravelly pieces and mix with the nuts. Set aside.

Brown 120g of the butter in a small 20cm-wide saucepan. Set aside at room temperature.

While the brown butter is cooling, place the remaining butter, both sugars and vanilla in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat on medium speed for about eight minutes. The mix will look more like sugary paste than soft and creamed. This is because the sugar to butter ratio is high, but this will be corrected when the brown butter is added.

Meanwhile, lightly mix the egg and yolk in a small bowl with a spatula. Sift the flour, ground tea, bicarbonate of soda and salt into another bowl and set aside.

Reduce to just above low speed and slowly stream the brown butter into the bowl. Beat for three minutes. Add the egg mix in two batches and beat for two minutes on just under high speed. The mix should look pale and creamy but holding a very soft (but not liquid) structure.

If the creamed mix has overheated and is slack and melty, remove the bowl and attachment from the mixer and place in the fridge until it starts to harden around the edge of the bowl. Place back on the machine and continue beating. A melted base makes the cookies overspread, and a little greasy when baked.

Reduce to low speed, add the chocolate and nuts and mix for one minute until only just incorporated. Add the dry ingredients and mix for a final minute.

Take the bowl off the mixer and give the dough a thorough and final mix with a stiff spatula. A final mix with a plastic spatula ensures no butter streaks are left in the dough. Any buttery seams will show in the baked cookie – while still delicious, it will bake a little funny looking.

Line a tray with baking paper. Using an ice cream scoop, fill a scoopful of dough and level the top. Release the scoop on to the tray. This will give you a compact portion of dough. Place the scoops closely together on the tray.

Alternatively, measure the dough as two full tablespoons each or weigh to 40g and roll into a sphere. Cover and chill overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 130C/110C fan/ Gas ½. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Arrange the dough balls on the tray, spacing them about 3cm apart to allow for spreading. Sprinkle a few flakes of sea salt on top of each cookie.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. The cookies will still be soft but will firm up when cool. Bake a little longer if they are too pale or you prefer a crispier cookie. Most importantly: optimal wait time before eating is 20 minutes.

If you get severe overspread, reshape the cookies by stamping with a cookie cutter while they are still warm. If you declare cookie failure, crush them for a cheesecake crumb or serve cookie shards with good vanilla ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce.