What Makes The Viral 'Martha Stewart Fired Me' Cookies Unique?

Martha Stewart has built a foodie empire through books, business, and television shows. From Martha Stewart's favorite recipes to her helpful baking tips, there is a lot she's famous for. However, recently her name has gone viral for an employee she fired — and a cookie recipe that followed.

Now a gallery owner and author, Sarah Gormley once worked for Martha Stewart but was fired for reasons she hasn't disclosed. During her downtime between jobs, she undertook a quest to make perfect chocolate chip cookies. She finally settled on a recipe that has since been dubbed the Martha Stewart Fired Me cookies, which includes salted butter, three different types of sugar, and sea salt.

The extra types of sugar and extra saltiness seem overly complex at first, but the additional sugar types actually lend to the cookie's chewiness. Meanwhile, the salt gives the cookies a bolder, unique flavor. Combined with some helpful tips to make extra chewy chocolate chip cookies, these cookies are deliciously rich and moist, with a salty edge.

The additional sugar types and use of extra salt wasn't done on a whim. Sarah Gormley made 38 attempts at creating the perfect chocolate chip cookie before arriving at this recipe. This repeated trial and error resulted in a recipe that calls for specific but necessary little steps.

On top of adding extra sugar, the recipe calls for salted butter, uncommon for chocolate chip cookies. This brings out a more savory flavor that contrasts with the sweetness of the chocolate chips. The use of sea salt does the same; Gormley opts to use a small amount of textured sea salt rather than kosher salt in both the dough and on top of the cookies, which gives the cookies a little bit of crunch.

Last but not least, Gormley's recipe — which first appeared in her memoir, "The Order of Things" — calls for more chocolate chips or chunks, depending on what you prefer, than most recipes. Combined with the use of melted butter, these cookies are incredibly dense and heavy on the chocolate in the best way.