Salted Cookies (Mother’s Day)

I was recently given the opportunity to try a few items from Uncommon Goods.  I have ordered from their company for years. They are a company out of Brooklyn, NY that’s been in business since 1999. 1/2 of what they make is by hand and 1/3 of their items use up-cycled or recycled materials. How many companies can say that?  It’s my go-to shopping place for when I’m going for something a little bit out of the ordinary. I’ve used it mostly for wedding presents (they have a fantastic lineup of personalized items), but this year I’m using it for Mother’s Day.

I picked 3 different products. The nesting bowls,  flavor infuser water bottle and the dessert salts. My oh my did I pick some good products. Let’s start with the nesting bowls.

For one, I can never have too many bowls. And believe it or not, I get that from my mom. Perfect Mother’s Day present. The artist of these beautiful bowls was an attorney in NYC for 35 years until she retired and started doing her pottery full time. Beautiful work of art.

On to the 2nd item. I’ve been trying to drink more water which seems like a constant battle. For one thing, if I don’t bring water along wherever I am going, I don’t get it drank. I try not to drink out of plastic….way too many red flags for that. This is a glass bottle that gives you the flavor of whatever fruit (or vegetable) you add in! See the bottles of cucumber mint water in the grocery stores? Save yourself $4 and make your own!

I had frozen strawberries and frozen rhubarb in the freezer.

It was fabulous. I left the fruit in all day and kept refilling the bottle with fresh water. I can’t wait to try new flavors.

Now. the dessert salts.

Notice the card underneath. Almost every item that you order comes with a card explaining the artist or maker.

Anywhere you can add sweet with salty I’m all over it. 6 different kinds of salts. I thought the best way to spotlight the salts is to make shortbread or some sort of base to really highlight the salts. The cookies that I made to showcase the salts are similar to a shortbread, however they do have a bit of baking soda. They are unbelievable and even better with the salts.

Every good recipe starts with butter. Unsalted and room temperature.

Mix the flour in so it’s just barely mixed.

Roll the dough into a log that ends up being about an inch and a half thick. Cool in the refrigerator for a good few hours. I left mine in over night.

I made half of my dough chocolate and half good ol’ vanilla.

Slice at about 1/2 inch or so.

The main event. Salt.

I sprinkled the chocolate with Orange Ginger, Vanilla Cardamom and Espresso. The plain or vanilla ones I sprinkled with Vanilla Lavender, Rose Peppercorn and Hibiscus.

I labeled all of the cookies after I sprinkled them with salt. L- is for Lavender. 🙂

They looked stunning even before baking.

And even better afterward.

Espresso

Hibiscus

Vanilla Lavender

Orange Ginger

Rose Peppercorn

Vanilla Cardamom

It was very hard to determine a favorite. However, I absolutely loved the rose peppercorn which I never would have expected. The salts are a great gift on their own, but you could make the cookies with the salts – add a cute label for each different kind of salted cookie –  and box them up. –That would be a fantastic gift!