[Photograph: Carrie Vasios]

I love the combination of salty and sweet flavors. When I take a bite of something like a chocolate-covered pretzel, my head kind of explodes. I momentarily blackout and all I can think is YUM. In fact I blame a bag of salted caramels for why I didn't get the movie Momento.

I have one salty-sweet cookie in my arsenal, but I decided I'd like another. I also wanted to include nuts, and not just peanuts. A combination of peanut and almond butter gave me the balance I wanted— a rounded nuttiness. Using crunchy versions of both (crunchy almond butter is made by the makers of Kettle chips, who knew?) imparts the desired texture.

Given that some people found the granola from Eleven Madison Park to be a tad salty, I've scaled back the amount of salt in this recipe to a more moderate amount (think: peanut butter filled pretzels.) If you're a salty-sweet fiend, feel free to sprinkle some coarse sea salt over the tops of the cookies before they bake.

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Salty Mixed Nut Cookies »

About the author: Carrie Vasios is the editor of Serious Eats: Sweets. She likes to peruse her large collection of cookbooks while eating jam from the jar. You can follow her on Twitter @carrievasios