Flat and Bumpy Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

These are not mistakes. No, no, these super-flat, chewy-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-edges cookies are supposed to look this way. Flatter than flat. Like little cookie Frisbies.

I wish I could tell you that because of the thinness, these cookies are somehow less in the calorie department than the fatter version, but, alas, they are as rich and buttery as a cookie should be. They are chocolatey, with bits of bittersweet chocolate scattered throughout, in large and small. They are walnutty; toasted then chopped with pieces left big enough so the taste pops as opposed to merely serving as background music.

They are, in a word, crazygood – that’s one word, right?

I saw a photograph of these cookies not long ago on the Saveur magazine website and I thought they were the funniest looking things, so I had to give them a try. I changed up the recipe a bit here and there – I added a whole bunch of walnuts (instead of just 1 cup) and didn’t grind them into a fine powder like the recipe said; ditto with the chocolate – I figured bigger pieces of both would be much more interesting, and even though I didn’t make them the other way for a compare-and-contrast, I feel pretty safe in saying that my way — with chocolate and walnut bumps throughout — is the way to go here. I swapped out fleur de sel for Kosher salt because I love it so, and I strongly recommend you using it in this recipe – it gives such a nice clean flavor to cookies and both contrasts and enhances the chocolate.

It felt strange to make a flat cookie on purpose after having so many flatten out by accident in France…but in texture and flavor, these cookies are perfectly balanced, and I think they’ll make great tops and bottoms for ice cream sandwiches in the summer.

As If I’m going to wait that long.

Flat and Bumpy Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

Makes 6 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies

Adapted from Saveur magazine

• 2 cups/250 grams of flour
• 2 teaspoons of fleur de sel
• 1 ¼ teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 ½ cups/330 grams of brown sugar
• 1 ¼ cups/250 grams of sugar
• 1 cup/2 sticks/250 grams of butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 ½ cups/180 grams of roughly chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used Callebaut pastilles)
• 2 cups/240 grams of walnuts, toasted then roughly chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C and line a couple of your largest cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together your flour, fleur de sel, and baking soda and set this aside.

3. Beat the butter and sugars together for a few minutes until it’s light and fluffy. Add the eggs and mix in one at a time; then add the vanilla. Pour in your flour and mix only until it comes together. Now add the chopped chocolate and walnuts and combine.

4. Chill your dough (I was feeling impatient, so I only chilled the dough for about a half-hour, but it was firm and I popped it in the fridge between baking each batch), then scoop out onto your cookie sheets, leaving plenty of room — about 3 inches — between each one so they can spread and not bump into each other. Bake for about 10 minutes, and cool on a rack or leave on the parchment paper (taken off of the pan).

Cowgirl Tip: Forget to take your butter out of the fridge in advance? No problem. Just “soften” your butter by giving it a few whacks with a rolling pin. Be sure to leave it in the wrapper so you don’t make a big mess.