Chocolate Chips + Sea Salt + Walnuts + YUM!

It's hard for me to find a really great cookie. I mean, a REALLY great cookie. The kind of cookie that makes your mouth water long after you've finished it and makes you wish you had – oh, I don't know – about 20 more.

Well, as part of my recent baking binge, I decided to created some of my own custom cookie recipes. It was purely selfish as I went through a mental list of some of my personal favorite flavors. And I'm not just referring to "cookie" or "dessert" flavors. Rather, I'm talking about the fantastically delicious combination of savory and sweet.

So after much thought, here's what I came up with: Chocolate chip, walnut and sea salt cookies with a hot fudge drizzle.

Umm, I don't mean to embarrass you, BUT...there's a not-so-tiny bit of drool on your lower lip. Might want to clean that up before reading further. :)

Here's the recipe. If I don't say so myself, these are seriously killer cookies. They are chewy, nutty, chocolate-y, salty, and a bit crisp all at the same time. I made so many that I gave boxes of them to about 10 friends. There have been requests for seconds and in some cases, thirds. If you make them, I hope you have the same result!

Chocolate Chip, Walnut, Sea Salt Cookies + Hot Fudge Drizzle

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (45-60 seconds in the microwave usually does the trick)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I use Bourbon vanilla extract for an added kick)
• 2 large eggs
• 3-4 cups (36-48 ounces) Semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use Trader Joes or Nestle Toll House Chocolate Morsels)
• 2 cups walnut baking pieces (I get these from Trader Joes as well...they have great prices on nuts)
• Sea salt grinder
• Hot fudge of your choice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a medium-sized bowl. You don't have to sift the ingredients, but definitely whisk to combine. Beat the softened butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in a bigger bowl until creamy and all lumps are broken up. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well until combined. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet mixture, a small bit at a time. Once both mixtures are combined and the batter is smooth, stir in the chocolate chips and walnut pieces. Note: the batter will be really chunky after adding the chocolate chips and nuts.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick "silpat" sheets. Drop generous spoonfuls of batter onto the baking sheet, using your fingers to shape. Keep about 3" between spoonfuls. You should be able to fit about 12 spoonfuls of batter on each baking sheet. Using a sea salt grinder, grind one "turn" of salt on top of each cookie. It's up to you if you want more salt, but I've found that any more than one turn of the grinder makes the cookies too salty.

Once the salt has been added, dip the tip of a small spoon into the container of hot fudge. I'd recommend doing this over the baking sheet so you don't have to go far, e.g. not "drizzling" your kitchen floor with hot fudge. Remove the spoon slowly and until the fudge starts to "drizzle" from the tip of the spoon. Drizzle the hot fudge on top of each spoonful of dough. I usually drizzle about 5-10 thin lines of hot fudge on each scoop of dough. Don't worry if the hot fudge gets on the tray in between each scoop of dough; the cookies will bake and expand over the excess hot fudge drizzle.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes or until barely golden brown around the edges. Remove the cookies from the oven and wait about five minutes before transferring to a cooling rack (when warm, the cookies are very delicate). Once the cookies cool, the hot fudge will create a crispy, caramelized crust around the edge of the cookie. But good luck waiting that long.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies. Ignore the images of the Toffee crunch and mini peanut butter cup cookies. Recipes for those to come later!