Who can resist the sweet/salty pairing? Salted caramels, chocolate-covered pretzels, or sea-salt milk chocolate bars (like my favorite from De Rubeis), the combination lights up the tongue. I found a salted cashew cookie recipe in King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking cookbook and swapped out salted sunflower kernels for the cashews. Old-fashioned oats, ground for 30 seconds in a food processor, give the cookies a crunchy texture, and a sprinkling of sparkling sugar on each one maintains the balance between sweet and salty. Sparkling sugar gives the rather plain-looking cookies a bit of eye appeal as well.
Salted sunflower oat cookies
- 1/2 cup salted butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 2 cups old fashioned rolled oats, ground for 30 seconds in a food processor
- 2 cups salted sunflower kernels
- Sparkling sugar for topping
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 half sheet pans with SilPat or parchment paper. Beat butter, sugar, baking powder, vanilla, and egg in a medium bowl. Beat in ground oats, then sunflower kernels. Using a tablespoon 
cookie scoop, drop dough onto the prepared pans. Place the sparkling sugar in a shallow dish or saucer. Dip the moistened bottom of a small drinking glass into sparkling sugar and flatten each cookie ball; recoat in sugar after each cookie. Bake for 12-15 minutes, switching pans halfway through for even browning.
