Choco Toffee Cookies

Who: Greg Rales, owner, founder, and chef at Red Gate Bakery

Instagram: @RedGateBakery

Chef Rales’s Guest-Worthy Recipe: Choco Toffee Cookies

Why? “The chocolate chip cookie is everyone’s favorite comfort food, and making them allows you to use those pantry staples you have around from your last baking adventure. Turn the volume all the way up with chunks of toffee and gooey bits of chopped chocolate for a decadent treat. The hardest part will, of course, be waiting for them to cool before you dive in. With kids home from school, too, we imagine people are looking for a project, and these cookies are easy to make and even more fun to eat.”

Ingredients

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room

temperature

1 c brown sugar, packed

1/4 c granulated sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 c chocolate-covered toffee bar (Trader Joe’s makes a great candy), chopped

1 c chopped bittersweet chocolate

Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Cream together both sugars with the butter until light and fluffy, about three to five minutes. Your arms will thank you if you don’t have an electric mixer! You’re looking for a noticeably lighter, creamy result, where sugar has nearly dissolved.

Add eggs, one at a time, making sure to scrape down the sides between each addition.

Add all of the dry ingredients and mix just to combine. Fold in both chopped toffee and chocolate.

Using a four-ounce scoop, scoop mounds of dough onto a baking tray, at least two inches apart. Sprinkle with flaky salt.

Bake for 15 minutes, rotating pan top to bottom and front to back halfway through. If you, like me, are into crinkly edges, rap the pan against the rack in the oven during rotation to deflate the centers and create ripples toward the edge of each cookie. Let cool.