As a part of the Minnesota Fare promotion at Potluck, the food hall at Rosedale, pastry chef Adrienne Odom is playing tribute to Sweet Martha's by filling jars with tender, buttery chocolate chunk cookies. Through Sept. 7.
Both the butter and chocolate ratios are almost absurdly high, which means that even when they're no longer warm from the oven, they usually retain that gooey sweet spot.
Enjoy delicious chocolate chip cookies — better yet: double chocolate chip cookies — and help this nonprofit give kids ages 15 to 18 firsthand experience with work and leadership skills. Order online (they're sold by the dozen), and pick up at the Cart's St. Paul location. There's a delivery option, too.
Owner Lindsay Pohlad reaches CCC nirvana by invoking three kinds of flour (all-purpose, bread and cake), piling on a pair of chocolates (semisweet and bittersweet) and then reaching for flaky Maldon sea salt for the all-important finishing touch. They're so big that opting for a knife and fork is entirely plausible, if not outright recommended.
Owner Heather Asbury's vaguely Toll House-y chocolate chip cookies — tender, chocolaty and deeply golden — are the kind that bakers everywhere wish they could replicate at home.
This engineering marvel of a cookie stands out both for its shape, which is wide and flat and as wrinkled as a Shar Pei. The texture is similarly remarkable: crisp and caramelized on the bottom and tender on top.
3220 W. Lake St., Mpls., 612-822-1119, and 200 Southdale Center, Edina, 952-417-6199
In the spirit of Sweet Martha's, this North Loop newcomer is promising buckets of warm, buttery, gooey, bite-sized chocolate chip cookies (somewhere around 18 to 20 cookies per serving), straight out of the oven and served in a 16-ounce souvenir container.
These enormous cookies have been a staple of this classic Minneapolis bakery for what feels like forever, and with good reason: the addition of peanut butter softens their chewy texture, and that mellow P.B. flavor pairs nicely with the prodigious amounts of milk chocolate chunks.
4762 Chicago Av. S., Mpls., 612-823-7333; 3421 W. 44th St., Mpls., 612-924-6013; and 4205 E. 34th St., Mpls.
When chocolate chip cookies collide with sea salt and marshmallow, the result is the kind of happy excess that screams "Minnesota State Fair."
2743 Lyndale Av. S., Mpls., 612-424-8855
Rick Nelson • @RickNelsonStrib • Sharyn Jackson • @SharynJackson
Rick Nelson joined the staff of the Star Tribune in 1998. He is a Twin Cities native, a University of Minnesota graduate and a James Beard Award winner.
rick.nelson@startribune.com612-673-4757