Dark Chocolate Pretzel Cookies

Where are my dark chocolate lovers!?! These Dark Chocolate Pretzel Cookies are a perfect balance of sweet and salty without being overly sweet. Loaded with dark chocolate chunks, crushed pretzel and delicious vanilla flavor, these cookies will convert anyone to a dark chocolate lover!

Dark Chocolate Explained

Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, all delicious, but what’s the difference? 

The difference in the kind of chocolate depends on the amount of cocoa solids in the chocolate. The higher the cocoa solid percentage means the darker the chocolate will be. If you notice in the store, most dark chocolate will have a percentage on it, like 73% cocoa or 60% cocoa. The percentage means that it has more cocoa in it, which means less room for other ingredients such as sugar, butter, etc. Having less room for sugar means the less sweet it will be. So if you’re wanting a slightly less sweet chocolate I would go for around 60% cocoa. If you’re wanted really rich, deep cocoa flavor with just a hint of sugar, go higher to the 75-80% range. 

Milk chocolate has less cocoa solids and milk added in, hence the name ‘milk chocolate’! White chocolate doesn’t contain any cocoa solids which is where the debate comes in on whether it should be considered chocolate or not.

That’s a whole other debate that we don’t have to get into today (although, white chocolate will always be chocolate in my book). 

Sweet and Salty Together Forever

If you’re not a sweet and salty lover like myself, you might be kind of shocked to see pretzels in a cookie. 

I know it seems kind of odd. Pretzels are typically with hummus, peanut butter, or just by themselves. Not really a cookie kind of food, right?! Wrong, totally wrong. I first added pretzels to my Kitchen Sink Cookies (and you can find the recipe for those HERE) and my whole life was changed!

They retained their crunchiness while baking so you get this nice like pop while you’re eating them that pairs beautifully with the melty chocolate. I like to use the smaller pretzel shapes or even the pretzels in the square shape as well. The more pretzel you can add in, the better! I would stay away from really thick pretzels or the pretzel rods. Those might not mix into the batter as well!

The other good thing about the saltiness of the pretzel and the dark chocolate is that these cookies end up being sweet without overpowering. If you don’t have a really big sweet tooth or prefer salty over sweet for a late midnight snack, these cookies are perfect for you! 

Ingredient List

• Flour
• Baking Powder
• Salt
• Butter
• Egg
• Brown Sugar
• Sugar
• Vanilla
• Dark Chocolate
• Pretzels

There's the typical ingredients for cookies with the flour, baking powder, sugar, and eggs, but then we get into the really fun part with the dark chocolate and pretzels!

These cookies are so fun to make but even more fun to eat! If you don't have the dark chocolate or the pretzels, you sub in any sweet or salty ingredients you like best! Feel free to add in nuts or different kinds of chocolate as well!

Tips and Tricks

My favorite trick when it comes to making cookies is to top the unbaked cookie dough with a few mix-ins before you bake it! For this recipe, I topped the cookies with a more dark chocolate chips before I baked them! The end result is a loaded chocolate chip cookie that has tons of melty chocolate on the top. It really adds to the delicious factor! 

Another trick with these cookies is to get the pretzels into smaller pieces. The smaller pieces you get, the more the pretzel you get in each bite, and the easier it makes to stir the pretzel in! 

You’ll want to use a spatula to mix in the ingredients because a mixer will break up the pretzels too much! 

We all know I’m a huge lover of sweet and salty, but the dark chocolate in these cookies is the real MVP.

Dark chocolate adds such a depth of flavor to these cookies and makes them an instant classic. Plus, it’s healthy.

That’s a win-win.

Cheers!

-Holly Michelle