Ancho Chile & Magic Salt Chocolate Cookies

Makes about 32 cookies.

We love these cookies with their salty, spicy kick from our cult favorite Magic Salt.

We’ve included ancho chile in the dough to deepen the chocolate flavor and added buckwheat flour for its nutty, earthy notes. 

We use raw cacao powder, but you can substitute any non-Dutched cocoa powder (The Dutched type is less acidic and will not properly activate the baking soda leavening.)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup buckwheat flour
¼ cup raw cacao powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup neutral oil, such as avocado or canola
¾ cup sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon ancho chile powder, optional but recommended
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional

For rolling:
2 teaspoons Magic Salt
2 tablespoons sugar

Put the flours, cacao, baking soda, and salt into a bowl and whisk to combine.

Put the oil, sugar, egg, ancho, vanilla, and espresso (if using) into a separate mixing bowl and whisk briskly until the mixture is creamy and the color lightens a bit, 1–2 minutes.

Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Use a spatula and strong strokes to fold them together, forming a dough. Be sure to get all the flour mixed in — at first, it will seem like there’s not enough liquid for the task, but there is, just keep going.

Chill the dough for 15–30 minutes.

While the dough chills, preheat the oven to 375° F and line two cookie sheets with baking parchment. Put the Magic Salt and tablespoon of sugar into a small bowl and stir to mix them. Set the cookie sheets and Magic Salt mixture aside.

Scoop out about a tablespoon of dough and roll it into a ball; roll the ball in the Magic Salt mixture. Set the ball on one of the prepared cookie sheets. Repeat until you’ve used all the dough. The balls should be 1–2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.

Bake until the tops are deeply cracked but the cookies look slightly under-baked, 8–9 minutes. Don’t over bake! Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 10 minutes before trans­ferring them to a rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.