by Pierre Hermé, via Dorie Greenspan
This chewy salty chocolate cookie started life in the late 1990s as a feature sweet by pastry chef Pierre Hermé for a Paris restaurant called Korova. It’s a chocolate sablé made with brown sugar and chunks of bittersweet chocolate and—revolutionary for its time it—a lot of fleur de sel. We make take salt on cookies for granted now, but this is where it all started. How did it get the name World Peace? A neighbour of cookie maven Dorie Greenspan’s thought the cookie was so good and bound to be universally loved. So loved, it would bring world peace. The dough can be recalcitrant, and muscling the dough into logs without hollow bits is a bit of a trial. You might want to bake in baking rings if you prefer a perfectly round cookie. But, no matter how they look, they will taste great.
| 1¼ c | all-purpose flour |
| ⅓ c | unsweetened cocoa powder |
| ½ t | baking soda |
| 1 stick | plus 3 T unsalted butter, cut into chunks, at room temperature |
| ⅔ c | packed light brown sugar |
| ¼ c | sugar |
| ¼ t | fine sea salt plus fleur de sel for the tops of the cookies |
| 1 t | pure vanilla extract |
| 142 | grams best-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped into irregular sized bits |
Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.
Working with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until soft, creamy and homogenous, about 3 minutes. Beat in the salt and vanilla. Turn off the mixer, add all the dry ingredients and pulse a few times to start the blending. When the risk of flying flour has passed, turn the mixer to low and beat until the dough forms big, moist curds. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix to incorporate. This is an unpredictable dough. Sometimes it’s crumbly and sometimes it comes together and cleans the sides of the bowl. Happily, no matter what, the cookies are always great.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface and gather it together, kneading it if necessary to bring it together. Divide the dough in half. Shape the dough into logs that are 11/2 inches in diameter. Don’t worry about the length—get the diameter right, and the length will follow. (If you get a hollow in the logs, just start over.) Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and freeze for at least 2 hours or refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
When you’re ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
Working with one log at a time and using a long, sharp knife, slice the dough into 1/2-inch-thick rounds. (The rounds might crack as you’re cutting them—don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between them. (If you’ve cut both logs, keep one baking sheet in the fridge while you bake the other.)
Bake the cookies for 12 minutes — don’t open the oven, just let them bake. When the timer rings, they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, and that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can munch them, or let them reach room temperature (I think the texture’s more interesting at room temperature). Repeat with the other cookie sheet
Makes about 36 cookies.