Food: Bourbon Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Bourbon Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Nothing says I love you like homemade baking. Flowers are a lovely gesture, sure jewelry is shiny but taking the time and making the effort to whisk, stir and bake for your special Valentine really says it all. And the added bonus when you bake something for your sweetheart?? Chances are they will share with you – and you can’t share a pair of earrings or a dozen roses can you??? Bourbon Salted Chocolate Chunk cookies for the win!! Add a bottle of bourbon and I’d venture to guess that love is in the air….

For those of you who have followed my Whiskey Corner posts, remember when we paired chocolate and bourbon? One thing I noticed across the board with any bourbon was that they paired well with darker chocolate. This of course is completely subjective but for these cookies, I decided to use semi-sweet chocolate and I threw in a handful of caramel bits for good measure, mainly because I had some and because chocolate, caramel and bourbon is just about the best thing ever. If you can’t decide which chocolate to use, just use a combination. The addition of the flaked salt on this cookie, elevates your basic chocolate chip cookie to an adult version, perfect for sharing.

Bourbon Chocolate Chunk Cookies: Cook time approx. 40 min. Makes approx. 35-40 cookies

Ingredients:

¾ cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

¼ cup bourbon + 2 oz

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt + maldon/flaked salt to top cookies

8 oz of coarsely chopped chocolate – milk, semi sweet, dark or a combination

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 Conventional or 325 for convection baking. Line cookie sheets with parchment.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer but I mixed my cookies by hand. (to be honest, my stand mixer was in the basement and I was just too lazy to get it 😉)
Add the eggs, one at a time and mix well. Add the vanilla and the ¼ cup of bourbon and combine well. If it looks slightly separated, but have no fear, all will be well.
In a small bowl, sift the flour, soda and 1 tsp of salt. Add this in 2 additions to the dough. After the final addition, just before combined, add the chocolate and mix. We don’t want to overmix the dough.
Using an ice cream scoop or a tablespoon, scoop a tbsp of dough and place two inches apart on cookie sheet. Do not flatten.
Sprinkle each ball with maldon/flaked salt to taste.
Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes and transfer to cooling rack.
Once cooled, pour that 2 oz of bourbon and taste test your baking. Pretty damn good eh?

A couple of helpful tips. After I filled the first two trays, I felt the dough was getting a little sticky so I put the bowl of dough in the fridge. This helps to firm up the dough and keeps the cookies more uniform in size as they bake, not spreading too quickly. As for the chocolate chunks, If you only have chocolate chips and not chunks, you could pile the chips on a cutting board and roughly chop them with a few passes of a sharp knife. I used semi sweet squares and chopped them roughly but not in tiny pieces. The chunks add texture to the cookie when the chocolate pieces are not the same size. And if you really like a nut in your cookie, add a handful of toasted chopped nuts when you add the chocolate chunks to the dough. Raisins you ask? Take them and throw them in the garbage. They have no place in a chocolate chunk cookie in my opinion or in my kitchen. Ha! (no hate mail please). Lastly, keep in mind that although the cookies are baked, you do get a delicious hint of bourbon in each one. You may want to hide these away for after the kids go to bed so you can share with your sweetheart 😉

Happy Valentine’s Day!!! Cheers!

Have questions about the recipe or want to share your experience making this? Leave a comment below or send me a direct message @canadianproof. Tag me in pictures of your Bourbon Chocolate Chunk Cookies! I want to see them and will repost your pics!! Enjoy!