Aunt Lea, Sister Lea or Cousin Lea - depending on who you ask - is our family's Chef Extraordinaire! You'll never pass up a dinner party at her house and when she sends you a dozen of these frozen cookies ready to be baked there's no shame at all if you eat the entire batch before the kids get home from school.

Regular or Gluten Free Option
Yield: 18-22
Cook Time: 12 minutes for soft/15 for crispier
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup raw or granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened at room temperature)
1 large egg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour - if making GF use Bob Red Mills GF flour*
120-200 grams Ghirardelli dark chocolate with sea salt cut into small bite-sized chunks**
1 tsp Malden salt flakes or sea salt preferably not the fine salt
Optional: chopped nuts
1 tsp Xantham Gum (for Gluten Free option only)

* If making the gluten free option you will need 1 tsp of Xantham Gum
**For the chocolate, I use Ghirandelli dark chocolate with sea salt bars and cut into small bite-sized chunks. Feel free to use chocolate chips or any chocolate that is over 60% cacao.

Method: 

Before starting the food preparation. Preheat your oven to 350 F (180C). You will want to prepare a cookie sheet/tray with parchment paper, or nonstick option. 

Cream together the softened butter, raw or granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. (2-4 minutes) 

Beat into the creamed butter-sugar mix, the egg and vanilla extract until smooth. (2-4 min)

Add in the salt and baking soda (and Xantham Gum only if you are doing the GF option) and once combined begin to add in the flour in small batches until the dough is all combined. Don’t over mix.

Fold in the chocolate until distributed evening in the dough batter. I normally add in half and then begin to add in more until my desired chocolate chip to batter ratio. If you are not an experienced baker, stick with the recipe which is the ideal amount.

Divide batter into cookie balls by using a tablespoon as a measuring device to ensure that the cook time will be even for your cookies.

After diving the batter into balls, place the cookie dough balls about 2-2 1/2 in from one another on the cooking sheet.

Sprinkle the salt flakes on top of the balls before putting them in the oven.

Once the oven has preheated, cook the cookies for 12-15 minutes in the oven and cool for about 5 minutes on a wire rack before serving.Note: if you do not want to cook the entire batch, freeze the cookie dough balls and only make 4-8 cookies at a time. Then you can enjoy them whenever you want. The cooking temperature and time will remain the same.