Stone Baked Chocolate Chippers with Vanilla Maple Candied Pecans

For the cookies:

Soften butter at room temperature slightly – about 10 minutes. Cream butter with both sugars: mix on low, then increase the mixer to high and continue beating about 3 minutes, until the mixture is very light and fluffy.

Add eggs, and vanilla, and beat 2 more minutes. Set aside.

Whisk the flours, baking soda, salt, and baking powder together in a separate bowl. I like medium coarse sea salt in this recipe because you’ll get this wonderful salty bite here and there in your cookies. That combo of chocolate, caramel and salt is so delish. If you would rather use regular salt, just use 1/4 teaspoon instead.

Using an on/off pulsing motion, add 1/3 of the flour into the creamed mixture, stopping just before it is fully incorporated. Add the remaining two portions of flour in the same way, stopping again before the flour is fully incorporated. Now, add the chocolate chips and chopped candied pecans, and mix on low speed just until all is incorporated. This might seem like extra steps, but mixing the flour in several additions ensures even mixing, and prevents over mixing the dough, which would result in tough cookies. That’s all fine and good if you’re making bread, but we want tender, chewy, melt in your mouth cookies here.

Now, here’s the hard part: If you can stand it, cover your cookie dough and let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour, overnight is even better. I know, I know, that dough staring you in the face every time you open the fridge is really hard. It’ll be worth it – if we bake them now, they’ll spread more than we want.

Next, using a 1 1/2″ ice cream scoop, plop the chilled dough in a single layer into a glass or plastic freezable container. Cover tightly and freeze cookies about 10 minutes before baking. You don’t have to freeze the dough, but “flash freezing” the dough this way helps keep the cookies from spreading, giving you a slightly higher, sturdier cookie. Plus, you can leave scooped dough in the freezer, ready to bake whenever you get that cookie craving. If you freeze the dough completely, you might want to let them sit on the kitchen counter about 5 minutes to thaw before baking.

While the cookies are in the freezer, place the pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven, and turn it on to preheat at 350 degrees F.

I found it easiest to place parchment paper on top of my pizza peel, then stagger 6 cookies on the paper so they didn’t run into each other. If desired, top your cookies with 2 or 3 pecan halves before baking. Slide the the pizza stone into the oven and then slide the pizza peel out from underneath the paper so that the paper and cookies are resting on the stone that you placed in the oven. Bake 12-14 minutes until cookies are a light golden and set, but still soft in the center. In my oven it took 13 minutes. Slide the pizza peel underneath the parchment, remove from the oven and let cookies cool on the peel 2 minutes. Transfer cookies on the parchment to a baking rack to cool for at least 5 minutes before digging in.

For the Vanilla Maple Candied Pecans:

In a nonstick skillet over medium high heat, toast pecans about 3-5 minutes until they become fragrant. Add maple syrup, sea salt and vanilla. The syrup mixture should bubble. Shake the skillet vigorously, reduce heat to medium and cook another 1-2 minutes until syrup is thick and sticks to pecans. Scrape pecans out onto a piece of parchment paper to cool completely. When cool, chop half of pecans to add to cookies, saving remainder to top the cookies with. These are also great just eating by the handful, or adding to salads, muffins, yogurt, oatmeal, etc.

You could use a sugar/egg white based coating for the candied pecans in this recipe too. I’m just crazy about the chewy, caramel like maple coating on these pecans, they pair perfectly with the more intense caramel flavor in these cookies.

Cookie recipe adapted from Savory Sweet Life.