salted cast iron chocolate chip cookie

Are you ready for the weekend? I sure am. The last few weeks have been a dizzying blur of logistics. Tax returns. School applications. Work. Catching up with life and laundry after our blissful vacation. Oof.

Last Friday night the hubby came downstairs and found me cradling a glass of wine in one hand while swirling my other hand in a bowl of chocolate chips, the way one might test bathwater. He raised an eyebrow. “Um…is everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted. “I’m celebrating the start of the weekend, and all I need is a really big cookie. Really. Big.”

The hubby backed away, nodding slowly. He knows that I stress bake. I mix up a batter of my emotions, pour it into a pan and then let it bake at 350 degrees for the designated time. Then, I do what every stress eater does — I eat my feelings, one chocolate-y sweet bite at a time. It feels so, so good.

This time, the feelings took the form of a giant, ten-inch salted cast iron chocolate chip cookie.

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As you know, I’m a big fan of my Lodge cast iron 10-inch skillet (see here and here). I love how it comes pre-seasoned and how, over time, as I’ve cooked more in it, it’s developed a patina that contains the history of the food I’ve made. Plus, it’s affordable. In fact, I love my Lodge cast iron so much that I have a whole Pinterest board of recipes dedicated to it. That’s love, friends.

For this big salted chocolate chip cookie, I based my recipe off of Martha Stewart’s easy recipe for a cast iron chocolate chip cookie. Martha never fails. The biggest difference between her recipe and what I did is that I melted the butter fully in my skillet first, letting the butter brown just a bit to make it all caramel-y. Then I added Bulls Bay Carolina Flake sea salt. I picked up a jar of this sea salt the last time I was in Charleston for the Charleston Wine + Food Festival (click here and here for the posts about my time there), and I’m officially hooked. The flake salt has larger chunks in it than regular kosher salt, and the salt is — I don’t know how to describe it except to say that it is the essence of saltiness. It tastes like the ocean!

After my big cookie finished baking and had cooled just ever so slightly, I cut a wedge and started taking these photos, only to realize that I suddenly had an audience. The hubby stood next to me, shifting his weight from one foot to the other while watching me arrange and rearrange my cookie.

“I have an idea,” he suggested. He always thinks of me, that guy. “How about you cut more slices, and more, and more, to show a progression of the cookie being eaten?”

“But then I’ll have a bunch of cookie wedges sitting all over the kitchen,” I replied. “What will I do with them?”

“Oh, I have some ideas.”

Yeah. As it turns out, we didn’t have that problem. You know, with the extra cookie wedges laying all over the place.

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salted cast iron chocolate chip cookie

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

25 mins

This cookie is too, too easy to make and a great one-dish dessert! Adapted from Martha's recipe here.

Serves: 8 wedges

Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
⅓ cup packed dark-brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Equipment: one 10-inch cast iron skillet

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Heat the skillet over medium-low heat. Add butter and allow to melt. Once the butter is melted, start stirring the butter constantly, watching it carefully. The butter will foam, then turn golden, then start to brown and develop small brown flecks. Let it brown and remove from heat.
Pour the butter into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugars and stir to incorporate fully. Let cool just slightly.
Stir in the egg and vanilla, then add the flour, baking soda and salt and stir until a batter forms.
Add the chocolate chips and incorporate fully.
Pour the batter into the skillet and slide the skillet into the oven. Bake for 15-18 minutes until the cookie is set. Let cool on an iron rack for about 5 minutes, then cut into wedges and enjoy!