Dark Chocolate, Pistachio, and Sea Salt Cookies
So I finally bought the domain I told myself I’d buy if I ended up blogging for a year. Never mind that a year was in January. I’m only eight months late to the party. If you happen to use a feed reader or have the old site bookmarked, make sure you update it to www.thehooteats.com. I can barely type it without adding the ‘wordpress’ to it. I guess that’s what happens when you blog for 20 months straight at an old address.
I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything moved over and looking/behaving in relatively the same manner. If you find anything weird, let me know.
Cookies. I told you I’d bring them. I had the perfect excuse to make them—a movie in the park. The city shows movies in various parks throughout the summer on a giant inflatable screen. I was beyond giddy. I was such a sucker for drive-in movie theaters growing up, and they’ve all but disappeared. This is definitely the next best thing. The movie itself, Super 8, pretty much sucked after an hour, but that’s beside the point. The point is that we packed a blanket, I made some snacks, we met some friends who also brought snacks [and wine!], and I was able to lay out and watch a movie in a park. So. Awesome.
These cookies are pretty decadent, and by decadent I also mean awesome. They’re synonyms, right? I didn’t cut corners, trying to make them a little healthier. I didn’t modify anything. I followed Joy the Baker’s recipe to the letter [okay, so I subbed one small thing], and they were every bit as epic as the ingredients would lead you to believe. It’s also the first time I was actually able to get as many cookies out of a recipe as it says! That never happens! 24 perfect little cookies.
I had a hell of a time trying to find pistachios at the store. They weren’t in the bulk section. They weren’t in the nut section. They had an obscenely expensive package in the gourmet area. Then, after searching the whole store twice, I came across a package in the cracker/cookie/snack section. It was a sign. They were meant to be in cookies. I bought dark chocolate chunks and pulsed them into slightly smaller pieces since I didn’t have chips on hand. Dark chocolate and pistachios are definitely soul mates. Joy had smoked salt. I just had sea salt. It’s an absolutely acceptable substitute. Make these. Make them now!
Half were eaten the day of. Are you surprised? Really? I also ate a bunch for breakfast this week. It compliments green oatmeal cookie smoothies really well, okay? Don’t look at me like that.
Inspiration: Joy the Baker
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup [one stick] of butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
- 1 cup shelled pistachios, chopped
- sea salt for topping
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 350° and line two baking sheets with parchment or a Silpat.
- In the bowl of a mixer, cream together the butter with both sugars until it’s light and fluffy. Let it go for a good four minutes.
- Add the egg and mix together for another minute.
- Mix in the vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
- Add this flour mixture to the wet mixture.
- Turn the mixer on low until it’s just incorporated.
- Stir in the chocolate chips and pistachios.
- Using a cookie scoop, spoon, or your hands, place twelve equally sized balls [about 2 tablespoons] of dough on the cookie sheets [six to a sheet]. Keep them evenly spaced apart so they can spread.
- Sprinkle with sea salt.
- Bake on the top third of your oven for 16-18 minutes, until golden brown.
- Let them rest for five minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
- Repeat the steps with the remaining dough.
- Cool completely before eating. Or don’t. I won’t tell.
Delicious looking cookies and hooray on your website!
Thanks!!
HOOOORAY! 🙂 Does this mean you can implement Disqus on your blog now? :-p
I can! I was looking into it last night, and all the other 32480983029483 plugins. Then it was almost 1am. I’m going to keep tinkering. I was going to pick your brain on what ones you like!
If you have ANNNNYYYYY questions re: Disqus, ask Ryan. 🙂 He works there. I’m so biased. hahaha, but it’s a good product.
Yooouuuuu have a domain. Full of cookies. Life is good. I’m not brave enough/technically competent enough to make the leap, so I’ll just show up here, admire your blog, and drool over cookies. Is that allowed? I sure hope so. Although I won’t get instant updates that you have commented/replied any more! Oh, well. I looove pistachios. Pistachio pudding (the Jell-o brand kind) was my favorite when I was a kid. And coffee ice cream was my favorite ice cream. I was a small child with weird tastes.
You will still get updates of replies soon. I just need to add the Disqus plug in, I think. That seems to work well for that! Or find something else that does something similar. It was almost too easy to start up the site. From start to finish [minus my endless tweaking], it was less than an hour. Probably even less than 30 minutes. Now I need to find someone to build a lovely theme since I’m horrible with CSS.
I totally loved pistachio pudding growing up. I may or may not have had pistachio gelato at lunch yesterday. It’s too good! Welcome to the small child with weird tastes club. I loved all things vegetable and not many sweet things. It boggled everyone’s minds.
COOKIE COOKIE COOKIE!
Moving to a new domain is tough–but it will be worth it! Forward!
Congrats on finally getting your own domain! It’s exciting to move forward from WordPress.com
Your cookies sounds (and look) amazing. I just hosted the Chocolate Chip Cookie Challenge Link-Up on my blog and have been looking at tons of CCC recipes. I love the straight forward versions like yours that have a little twist. I haven’t seen any other CCCs with pistachios (in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever made cookies with pistachios) and that sounds like such a great addition!
Thank you so much Stephanie! It has been pretty dang exciting. It’s definitely still a work-in-progress, but I guess that’s half the fun!
The CCC Link-Up is such a great idea. I’m definitely going to check it out! Pistachios were definitely a decadent addition to the cookies. I hadn’t ever seen them in cookies either. It’s about time they got some love, too!
Movies in the park? That sounds incredibly awesome! One of the things I’m really looking forward to doing once I get my license (my road test is on September 15–fingers crossed I pass) is going to a drive-in theater. These cookies look so rich and chewy and deliciously studded with pistachios and chocolate–yum!
You still have drive-in theaters! Jealous!! That’s the perfect celebration of getting your license [you’ll totally pass!].
Michelle, it was great meeting you too!
These cookies look fabulous, and congrats on your new domain!
Ooooh, new website and cookies! Just made traditional choc chip cookes but will have to try these. Sea salt & dark chocolate are a match made in heaven imho.
I just bought a big bag of SHELLED (score!) pistachios from Costco. It’s a sign! 🙂
It’s a delicious sign!