Brown Sugar-Toasted Almond Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

For the toasted almonds:
Place almond slices and butter in a large pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Shake the pan a bit while nuts are heating and begin to toast. After a few minutes, sprinkle brown sugar over the nuts and continue to stir with a wooden spoon. You will notice the sugar will begin to melt and caramelize. Keep stirring to coat the nuts and reduce heat to medium low. Once you notice the almonds turning a golden brown and the sugar caramelizing, turn off the heat, sprinkle with sea salt and spread almonds out on parchment paper to cool. There will be clumps of almonds but that is fine, and will provide a good crunch for the cookies.

For the cookies:
Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. The butter will begin to foam. Make sure you whisk consistently during this process. After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan; continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a bowl to prevent burning. Set aside to cool for about 5 minutes.

With an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, vanilla, and milk until combined. Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low-speed just until combined. Gently fold in all of the dark chocolate chips and add the almonds. You may need to use your hands to help incorporate the almonds into the dough.

Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours in the refrigerator, or place in freezer for 30 minutes if you are super eager, although I cannot promise the same results if you do this. Seriously, it’s crucial to cool the dough.

Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Once dough is chilled, measure about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. Place dough balls on cookie sheet, 2 inches apart, and flatten the top a very tiny bit with your hand. (Seriously, only a tiny bit!)

Bake the cookies 10-13 minutes or until the edges of the cookies begin to turn golden brown. They will look a bit underdone in the middle, but will continue to cook once out of the oven. Cool the cookies on the sheets at least 2 minutes and sprinkle with a little sea salt. Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheets and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.