Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Cardamom Espresso Cookies
Makes: 13 - 15 cookies, about 2” across in size
OR, can also make about 7 - 8 giant cookies, approximately 4” across in size
If the name in itself is a mouthful, imagine how good the cookie must be ;)
ingredients
70 g salted butter, softened at room temperature
90 g brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp amaro
1 cardamom pod (substitute: 1/8 tsp ground cardamom)
1 small egg
110 g AP flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp + a pinch of baking powder
1 tbsp instant espresso powder
100 g dark chocolate sea salt caramel squares (I used these by Ghirardelli)
Chocolate flavoured fleur de sel (substitute: regular sea salt)
method
In a medium sized bowl, beat the butter and sugar together till the mixture is pale and smooth (the colour should be Much lighter than the dark brown of the sugar and the texture should not feel as grainy).
Add the vanilla, amaro, and egg to this mixture and whisk on medium speed till the mixture is uniformly sticky.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and espresso. Crack open the cardamom pod and smash the seeds down to a fine powder using a pestle & mortar. Alternatively, use ground cardamom. Mix all dry ingredients well and add this mixture in batches of two, to the butter mixture, whisking well on medium-low speed to ensure that there are no white streaks in the dough.
Roughly chop up 70 g of the chocolate squares and add them to the cookie dough. Mix well with a spatula to fully incorporate. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate till the time the oven is preheating. Meanwhile, line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Once the oven has preheated, take out the chilled cookie dough and divide it into little balls. These dough balls can be any size, depending on how big you want your cookies to be. Place the dough balls about 2 inches apart from each other on the parchment paper. Cut the remaining chocolate squares into big chunks and place one such chunk on top of each dough ball. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes, till the cookies are fragrant throughout your kitchen, and have started to turn a slightly deeper brown at the edges. Take them off the baking tray, immediately sprinkle the sea salt on them while they’re still warm and gooey, then cool completely on a wire rack. Store in an air tight container - for as long as they still exist without being devoured ;)
