Smoked Chocolate Chip Cookie w/ Caramel Sea Salt Baking Chips - Trader Joe's Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do you put sea salt on cookies before or after baking? ›

Once the chocolate chip cookies are done baking, immediately sprinkle the flaky sea salt on top so that it sticks to the cookies. I also like to use a fine sea salt inside the cookie while baking. Why does sea salt taste so good on cookies? Sea salt intensifies the flavor of your baked goods, especially chocolate!

Most cookie recipes call for a little bit of salt mixed into the dough to offset the sweetness. But the next time you bake up your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, add a little bit extra on top to enhance the flavor of the cookies even more.

While you can't eat the raw sugar cookie dough from Trader Joe's (Pillsbury is safe to eat raw), it has the quickest bake time of the two (10 vs. 17 minutes), meaning you're slightly closer to sinking your teeth into a wildly good cookie that tastes like you mixed up this batch of cookies yourself.

Trader Joe's Fleur de Sel Caramels are described as "hand made caramel with Fleur de Sel, a hand harvested sea salt collected off the coast of France." Ooo-la-la. You'll get 10 ounces of these individually wrapped caramels for $2.99.

Unless you're using it as a sprinkling/finishing garnish, I don't recommend using flaky sea salt in baking recipes. Why? The large flakes don't dissolve or disperse evenly in doughs and batters, leaving crunchy, salty pockets in whatever you're baking.

Fine Sea Salt

This is my go-to salt for baking. Whereas baking with some varieties of kosher salt can sometimes lead to bites that are way saltier than others, fine sea salt's small grain size dissolves evenly and readily into batters and dough.

Flaky sea salt: These are large, crunchy flakes typically used for sprinkling on top of baked goods like brownies or chocolate chip cookies.

Salt accentuates sweetness and suppresses bitterness, while also functioning as a natural enhancer to bring out the flavor in chocolate. Simply adding a touch of salt in chocolate recipes can make the chocolate taste better by balancing out flavours and bringing out many subtle nuances.

Add an acid to the recipe.

“You can add something acidic, such as lemon juice, lime juice, apple cider vinegar, or processed tomato products to foods to reduce the salty flavor,” says Edwards.

One package has 16 pieces of dough and costs $3.49. You'll find it in the refrigerated section near the yogurt.

Why do you rest cookie dough before baking? ›

The primary reason for a brief resting period to redistribute the liquid in the dough. While the dough sits, turning from loose and soft to drier and more scoopable, the flour is hydrating, yielding cookies that will bake and brown more evenly.

Overmixing the dough: Overmixing can lead to tough and dense cookies. It's essential to mix the ingredients just until they come together to avoid developing too much gluten.

Flavour Contrast: Normal caramel is characterised by its sweet, buttery taste, derived from caramelised sugar combined with butter and cream. It has a rich, indulgent flavour profile that is predominantly sweet. In salted caramel, adding salt creates a contrast that enhances the complexity of the caramel's flavour.

Butterscotch vs Caramel

The difference between butterscotch and caramel is that caramel is made with white granulated sugar and cooked to 340 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas butterscotch is made with brown sugar and cooked to 289 degrees Fahrenheit.

The addition of salt to caramel was not a new concept, as salt has been used for centuries to enhance the flavor of sweet treats. However, the specific combination of salt and caramel as a flavor was not popularized until the early 2000s.

Once the cookies are done baking, remove them from the oven and immediately sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of coarse sea salt. Let cookies cool at least 10 minutes on the cookie sheets before transferring to a cooling rack or enjoying them warm with a cold glass of milk. Repeat with remaining cookie dough and enjoy!

Many cookie doughs are pretty tolerant of over-mixing. You can just throw in the salt and give it a spin in the mixer. The salt won't be perfectly evenly distributed, but it should be good enough.

The functions of salt in baking include stabilizing the yeast fermentation rate, strengthening the dough, enhancing the flavor of the final product, and increasing dough mixing time.

Sea Salt Topping

This topping can be used only by Cookies that believe in the Almighty Sea.