Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pink Himalayan Sea Salt: When it is a special birthday

For RQG and KSG - Daughter and Mother

While living in Korea, the birth of my second child traumatized me in many ways, so much so that upon being wheeled from the delivery room and seeing the smiling and excited face of Husband who said to me, "We have a baby!" I responded with the words, "I will never ever have a child again."  The c-section, birth experience, and subsequent complications completely ruined and destroyed the joy of childbirth for me and I was completely turned off.  This upset Husband so that at one point, he ran to the surgery center and demanded to speak to everyone and anyone in charge to find out what had exactly happened to me to cause me that much emotional distress.  In the grand scheme of things, it was one day out of a my life that was horrible but the emotional scars were very raw at that time, and I didn't think I would recover.  In retrospect, it had less to do with individuals involved in my case, and more had to do with the entire system of health care and rules in Korea that caused me this distress.  (For example, husbands are not allowed to be present in the operating room during c-sections - I faced that by myself.)

A year later, Husband and I decided to have another child. The tipping factor to go ahead with it actually had to do with a move back to the Bay Area and the possibility of having one of my closest friends as my doctor.  She was already well-established as a wonderful OB/GYN, and as my close friend, one that I knew I could trust.  Husband deliberately chose an insurance where she was one of the preferred physicians just so that I could have access to her excellent care.  And it was her excellent care of me during the last five months of my pregnancy, during my labor and delivery, and my post partum care that transformed and erased all the pain and fear I had from my second delivery.  She magically made the best birth experience possible and impressed the pants off of Husband when I said, "I can have a fourth."

I am every so indebted to her and feel that I can almost never repay her.  Husband feels the same way and is so grateful to her for her extra special attention for me during the birth of Son.  For her wedding, when I asked her what she wanted, she sheepishly asked me if I might want to bake some cookies for her wedding.  Of course I gladly insisted that I would and so I baked some 500 cookies for her to put at the tables and pass out to anyone who wanted them.  And then this Doctor friend went and had her own beautiful little girl, RG, and that little baby completely has my heart in her little fist.  Her smile, her eyes, and all of her crazy baby drool (and she has it a lot) completely entrances me and makes me want to stick her in my purse, and carry her with me everywhere I go.  So when I asked Doctor friend what I could give to her daughter for her birthday, I again got the sheepish, "Can you bake some cookies for the party?"

Absolutely.  My pleasure.  My joy.  My honor.  I wanted something a bit different for her birthday so I decided to try a new cookie recipe out that I had seen in Tyler Florence Family Meal: Bringing People Together Never Tasted Better which was the claim of the best cookie recipe ever.  Only I was a bit shocked to see the amount of sugar that was in the recipe, AND Chef Tyler also put a frosting filling in between the two cookies.  I decided to check out the cookie and had in mind a possible counterpoint to the sweetness - a finish with some sea salt to tone down the sweetness.  I figured that a salty sweet combination would be deliciously unusual and also a bit fun.  The whole salty sweet phenomenon is not new at all, but it was new for me to try.  I also had some beautiful pink Himalayan sea salt and I thought it was a nice little tribute to the pretty little girl's birthday.

I made a huge tray of two different kinds of cookies - one the Toffee Pecan Oatmeal Cookie which is one of my favorite cookies to eat. 

The other would be the new chocolate chip cookie with sea salt.

I was pretty confident that the more popular cookie would be the pecan toffee chip one over the chocolate chip with the sea salt because it would be somewhat unexpected with the flavor.  Most people bite into a chocolate chip looking for that overwhelming sweetness and this would not be that at all.  But I was excited to see the reactions in the wide range of eaters that would be present at the party.  I was surprised to see more people eating repeatedly from the sea salt cookie side, and I kept hearing the words, "It's so addictive."  Which makes sense because that salty sweet combo is addictive.  Think kettle corn or doritos and a diet coke. Pecan rolo pretzels also have that same salty sweet combination.  The final verdict?  Excellent cookie with excellent texture and addictive salty sweet combination.

**If you can't find pink Himalayan sea salt or don't want to buy it, don't worry.  Any good quality sea salt with a larger crystal or a nice flake will be just fine.  Regular table salt is not the way to go with this however.

Hi-Hi's Chocolate Chip Cookies finished with Pink Himalayan Sea Salt
adapted from Tyler Florence's Family Meal

Makes 4 dozen

2 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground cinnamon
2 cups chocolate chips

1 tablespoon pink Himalayan sea salt (or another fine quality sea salt)

Preheat oven to 375.

In a mixing bowl, beat the brown sugar and butter together at medium speed until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until combined. In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, then add to the butter mixture and combine. Stir in the chips by hand.

Drop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets by rounded 1-inch balls, leaving 1 inch between them. Sprinkle a pinch of sea salt on top of each ball of dough.

Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Printable recipe

You may find yourself consuming this entire stack.

An excellent sea salt to have at home with a wonderful crumbly texture.














Perhaps you might want to get some of this to celebrate especially.














A great set of cookie scoops