Salted Almond Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Confession: I love peanut butter, but I love almond butter more. Almond butter is delicately sweet, slightly gritty and there’s a neutrality about it that peanut butter doesn’t offer. When baking with peanut butter, it usually becomes the main character while almond butter, even if it is the main ingredient, politely stands back and allows other flavors to come through to accent the mild stability it brings. I prefer to use a darker chocolate in these cookies because the bitterness of the chocolate marries well with the sweetness from the almonds, but any chocolate would be delicious, I’m sure. Whole almonds add a good crunch and just a touch of salt provides a hint of sharpness with each bite. I really love how the chocolate chunks melt throughout the cookie as well.

Some tips to make these cookies even more fantastic:

The longer these cookies are cooled in the refrigerator, the better the shape and texture of each cookie will be. Wrapping the dough in plastic wrap or even storing in an airtight container and keeping it chilled allows for slower expansion time so your cookies will bake in a rounded, puffy shape rather than spread and flatten out.

Baking these cookies on parchment paper helps cookies to hold their shape even more while preventing the melted chocolate from sticking to the bottom of the pan. This makes less mess and a more attractive cookie.

Do add chocolate chunks and almonds on top of these before putting in the oven. The chocolate will melt in a draping fashion over the cookies and the almonds will be nice and soft but still crunchy.