Deconstructed Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Cookie Dough
• 12 ounces unsalted butter, best you can get your hands on
• 3 cups Flour
• 1 Vanilla bean, scraped
• 1.5 cups raw sugar
• 3/4 cup packed Dark Brown (muscavado) Sugar
• 2 tsp salt, fine
• 1.5 teaspoons baking soda
• 6 tablespoons roasted almond butter
• 1 lightly beaten large egg
• 2 tablespoons fleur de sel (optional)
• 1 cup chopped dark toasted almonds (optional)
• Chocolate ganache (can be done the day ahead)
• 8 ounces Best quality dark chocolate, chopped
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 tablespoon cognac or rum or brandy or frangelico

1. Melt butter & vanilla in heavy bottomed sauce pan, add flour cook till light brown, this process is somewhere between a pate choux and roux, set aside, let cool.
2. Pre -heat oven to 350
3. In food processor, process sugars, baking soda, almond butter, salt till smooth and creamy
4. add egg, process again to incorporate
5. add roux, process again till fully incorporated.
6. Dough maybe sticky or oily , if so you can refridgerate a bit, but it's not necessary,
7. cover baking sheet with parchment or silpat, drop well rounded teaspoons of batter about 1" apart.
8. Sprinkle a few grains of fleur de sel on top of half the cookies (these will be the top half of the sandwich) bake 12 -13 min.. watch carefully till brown at edges, cool,
9. When cookies are cool, spread some of ganache on the bottom of 1 cookie and top with second cookie ( the one with fleur du sel on top) You can take this 1 step further and really fill the cookies with ganache then roll edges in chopped toasted salted almonds
10. Heat cream with vanilla bean till almost simmer, remove from heat let steep 20 min.
11. Bring cream back up to simmer, remove vanilla bean strain over chopped chocolate (Make sure chocolate is in a very clean very dry bowl)
12. mix together, add liquor, mix again, let cool slightly till easily spreadable

butter, flour, vanilla bean, sugar, brown, salt, baking soda, roasted almond butter, egg, almonds, chocolate ganache, chocolate, heavy cream, vanilla pod, cognac

Taken from food52.com/recipes/2224-deconstructed-chocolate-chip-cookies (may not work)