This recipe is from Alison Roman of the NY Times.  Although I take most recipes as a jumping off point and add my own personal touch, I follow this one verbatim. Partly because I am not really a baker and mostly because it is really, really good. I just love the addition of salt!

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Powdered sugar is used instead of flour.  When I first made them, I expected them to be really sweet.  Surprisingly they were not! As much as I try to find substitutes for sugar, sometimes there just isn't.  It won't stop me from trying and I will post should I find one.

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Ingredients​​

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• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter (3/4 stick)

• 2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar

• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (high-quality is best)

• 1 teaspoon sea salt

• 2 large egg whites

• 1 large egg

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (at least 67 percent cacao), chopped

• ½ cup finely chopped hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, pecans or walnuts (optional but preferable)

•  Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon (my favorite)

 

 

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

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Melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat, swirling, until it's starting to foam and brown, 3 to 4 minutes. (Whisk the butter from time to time so that the solids don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.) Let cool.

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Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a medium bowl, ridding it of as many lumps as possible. (If you really want to, feel free to sift everything.)

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Using a spatula, mix in the egg whites, whole egg and browned butter, stirring until you’ve got a good, smoothish mixture (any small lumps will take care of themselves), followed by the chocolate and any nuts you may want to add.

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Using a spoon, drop quarter-size blobs of dough (the texture is really somewhere between a dough and a batter) onto the baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart (they spread a lot). Sprinkle with flaky salt and bake until the cookies have flattened considerably and look baked through and a little wrinkled, 6 to 8 minutes. Let cool before eating so they can firm up.

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Cookies can be baked up to 2 days ahead, wrapped tightly, and stored at room temperature.

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