Alison Roman’s Salted Butter and Chocolate Chunk Shortbread — #TheCookies — is a slice-and-bake shortbread that cleared grocery store shelves when it went viral in 2018. The recipe is from her debut cookbook Dining In (2017): cold salted butter, chopped dark chocolate bar, a demerara sugar crust on the outside, and flaky salt on top.
Why These Cookies Are Different
Three things separate this recipe from any other chocolate chunk cookie.
Cold butter, not room temperature. When you beat room-temperature butter with sugar, you trap air bubbles that make cookies puff, spread, and develop a cakey crumb. Cold butter doesn’t aerate — it blends into the flour under pressure, producing a denser, crumblier texture. That’s shortbread, not a drop cookie. The cold-butter step is the whole reason these have the texture they have.
Bar chocolate, not chips. Chocolate chips are formulated with extra stabilizers so they hold their shape during baking. A chip stays a chip. Bar chocolate, chopped into rough pieces, melts completely into irregular pools that contrast with the crumbly dough around them. Roman is specific in the original recipe: use a bar, not a bag.
The demerara roll. The log is rolled in coarse demerara sugar before chilling. Each slice has a thin ring of crunchy, faintly caramelized sugar around its edge — a halo that standard rolled-in-granulated-sugar cookies don’t produce because fine sugar dissolves.
Ingredients (makes ~24 cookies)
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (252g) cold salted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
- ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (50g) packed light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2¼ cups (295g) all-purpose flour
- 6 oz (170g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate bar (60–70% cacao), roughly chopped
- ½ cup demerara or turbinado sugar (for rolling)
- Flaky sea salt (for topping)
The Process in Four Stages
Stage 1: Mix and form (15 min active). Beat cold butter with both sugars just until combined — briefly, not until fluffy. Add vanilla, then flour, then chocolate. Press into a 2-inch-diameter log. The dough is dry and crumbly by design.
Stage 2: Roll and chill (5 min active, 2 hours passive). Roll the log firmly in demerara sugar until coated on all sides. Wrap tightly in plastic. Refrigerate at least 2 hours (or freeze for later use).
Stage 3: Slice (5 min). Slice chilled log into ¼-inch rounds. Press back any cracks. Arrange on parchment-lined sheets.
Stage 4: Salt and bake (12–15 min). Sprinkle each slice with a few flakes of sea salt. Bake at 350°F until edges are golden and centers look slightly underdone. Cool on the pan 5 minutes before moving — they’re fragile until the butter re-sets.
Make-Ahead and Gift Notes
The log keeps in the refrigerator for 3 days or the freezer for 3 months — slice and bake straight from frozen, adding 2–3 extra minutes. For a gift tin, the crunchy demerara crust holds well for up to 5 days at room temperature; layer between parchment sheets.
