Salted Dark Chocolate Oat Cookies (★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆)

Salt fixes everything.

No, seriously...it does.

Think about it.

Whenever you cook something, or bake something, or "blah blah blah" [insert brûlée, flambé, etc] anything edible what's the one thing that is always missing?  The thing that item needs more of?  The one thing that just sets it over the edge?

Unanimously, the answer is salt.

The godsend.  

The cherry on top.

My mom is famous for making salsa and I've been her ever present taste-tester throughout the years...

but the scenario never fails.

"Can you taste this and tell me if it needs anything?"

"Um, I think it needs more salt."

"I already put in salt."

"I still think it needs some."

"I put in A-Lot of salt."

"Okay, but..."  [Skipping the argument and adding salt.]

"I'm telling you, I added a tuh... Oh.  That's good."

I mean what else gives pasta that pop?

Sautéed chicken that zip?

Fire roasted bell peppers that tang?

It's the most essential ingredient in play dough...a staple during our most fragile and pliable years.

And it's the best snail repellant I know of.  Oh, look at the fizz!

But salt just isn't for the obvious.

It's also for the dollop of whipped cream on your morning coffee.

For the slice of watermelon you packed in your lunch.

For the Dark Chocolate Oat cookies I baked you.

...Wait whaa?...

For whipped cream?  Fruit?  Cookies? 

Yup.  Especially for cookies.

A couple years ago, I decided to test what has been hailed as the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever: New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies.  

The secret?  

Well, lots of nuances...but mostly it was the sprinkling of salt on each piece before it entered the oven. 

They were good.

And the salt?  Heavenly.

The cookies had a slight savory taste and the salt helps to bring out the other flavors already present in the cookie.

I have now become a salt-believer.

Every cookie should be kissed with this stuff.

Let me convert you.

It's for your own good. 

Salted Dark Chocolate Oat Cookies

adapted from Jens Favorite Cookies and Stresscake

• 1/2 Cup Butter (softened)
• 1 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
• 1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 Cup Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 Cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder
• 1/2 Cup Oatmeal
• 1/2 Cup 70% Dark Chocolate Chunks
• *Coarse salt for sprinkling 

Bakes approximately 30 cookies

Preheat oven to 325F

Cook for about 12 minutes. 

1) Preheat oven to 325F.  Cream together butter, sugar, brown sugar
    *Tip:  If you haven't left the butter out long enough you can pop it in the microwave to speed up the
      "softening" process.  Be careful though.  You want softened not melted butter.  Start with 5 to 10
      seconds and go from there.  Flipping the cube and checking after every time.
     *Tip 2:  My intention was to use only brown sugar, but I found that the cookies were a little too
       bitter.  I added the white sugar later because I ran out of the brown.  If you want you can substitute
       either of the two for each other.  I just really like brown sugar.

2) Add eggs and vanilla.  Beat until thoroughly mixed.
    *Tip: 1 Tbsp might be a little overzealous.  I love vanilla in just about anything so I increased the
      amount.  In hindsight though, I couldn't really tell the difference so the standard 1 tsp would have
      sufficed.

Just me at work. 

Wet ingredients

3) In a smaller bowl, mix dry ingredients together with a spoon.  Flour, oats, cocoa powder, salt, and
    baking soda.
4) Gradually add dry ingredients to butter/sugar mixture, beating well between each addition.

5) Add or chop up 70% dark chocolate chunks (chips) to cookie dough.

Dark chocolatey goodness

 6) Place rounded tablespoonfuls of dough on greased cookie sheet about two inches apart.

 7) Sprinkle a dusting of salt over each ball.  Bake for 11-13 minutes or until middle springs
      back when touched.

These are good.

Ooey.  Gooey.

A little bit of chewy.
A ton of chocolately.
A hearty texture.

And the zinger?

The one that puts even all of Charlie Sheen's outrageous catchphrases to shame?

Salt of course.  

#winning

And you know what else fixes things?
My new Canon EOS Rebel T3.
Feast your eyes.








Dark Chocolate is yummy.

Deep Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies

Oatmeal Apple Crisp (★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆)

After I made that "Simple Apple Tart," I was left with quite a few apples. So I 'obviously' needed to bake something with them. This time though, I wanted to aim for something a little sweeter...more on the "comfort" food side of the spectrum.

I found this recipe for an apple crisp on the Southern Food section of about.com that fit the bill: Apple Crisp

First you cut the butter into the flour mixture.

Add in the oatmeal and your nut of choice (I recommend pecans).

It's not gorgeous, but that's not the point of this type of dessert.

Sloppy and delicious is the way to go.

I would definitely make an Apple Crisp again. It's super easy and uses minimal ingredients. Topping it off with ice cream makes it infinitely better. A al mode is always best. I can't say that I'm attached to this recipe though. I know there is better out there...one that will blow my socks off. Although, that probably means more work, more ingredients, and more calories.

But I'm up for the challenge.

"Cranny Clumps" (★ ★ ★ ★ ☆)

This is going to be quick.

Because, honestly, all I can say about these cookies is that they are so ridiculously delicious that me and my best friend decided they needed an "unappealing" name to stall the world from discovering these things.

See if we got the world hooked and then some how all the white chocolate chip farms and cranberry factories, ...

...not to mention the quick cook oatmeal fields, exploded we'd have mass hysteria on our hands.

The real kicker is that my mom found the recipe on the back of a Craisins package:

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

The rest is history.

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