Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is the recipe I bake now when a cookie really has to count. It delivers a deeply caramelized, crisp edge, a tender and almost fudgy center, and the toasty aroma of brown butter lingering in every bite.
Equipment
- Kitchen Scale
- #40 Cookie Scoop
- Light-colored Metal Baking Sheets
- Skillet or Saucepan
- Large Mixing Bowl
- Medium Mixing Bowl
- Spatula or wooden spoon
- Parchment Paper
- Wire rack
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt reduce to ¾ teaspoon if using table salt
- ¾ cup unsalted butter 170 g / 1½ sticks
- 1 cup packed brown sugar light or dark both work
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract use the real stuff
- 1½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate chopped chocolate bar gives you pools of chocolate; a mix of chips and chopped chocolate is my favorite
- flaky sea salt for finishing
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). If you use a convection oven, drop the temperature to 350°F (175°C). Position two racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
- Brown the butter. In a light-color skillet or saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter, swirling the pan occasionally. It will foam, crackle, and then turn a deep amber. You'll smell a distinct toasted-nut aroma—that's the Maillard reaction doing its beautiful work. Don't walk away; brown butter goes from perfect to burnt in seconds. Once it's amber with dark specks at the bottom, pour it into a large mixing bowl and let it cool for 15 minutes.
- Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Mix the sugars and butter. Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar to the cooled brown butter. Stir until the mixture looks like wet sand and no butter pools remain. It won't be fluffy, and that's okay.
- Add the egg and vanilla. Add the egg, then the yolk, then the vanilla. Stir until glossy and fully combined; the texture will be slick and almost shiny.
- Fold in the dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture and fold with a spatula or wooden spoon just until you no longer see streaks of flour. Overmixing develops gluten and makes cookies tough.
- Add the chocolate. Reserve a few chocolate chunks or chips to press onto the tops of the dough balls. Fold the rest in.
- Chill the dough. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours—24 to 72 hours gives you a dramatically deeper flavor and a thicker cookie. Trust me on this one.
- Scoop and bake. Scoop 2-tablespoon portions of dough (a #40 cookie scoop works perfectly) onto parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 3 inches apart. Press a few reserved chocolate pieces onto the top of each ball.
- Bake, then rest. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through. The edges should look deep golden brown while the centers still appear puffy and slightly wet. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes—they'll continue to set—then transfer them to a wire rack. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt while they're still warm.
Notes
Weigh your flour. Flour is the culprit in most flat or cakey cookies. If you don't have a scale, spoon flour into your measuring cup and level it with a knife—never scoop straight from the bag.
Resist overmixing. Once the flour goes in, stir until the dough just comes together. See a few streaks? Stop there.
Chilling is non-negotiable. Warm brown-butter dough will spread into thin, greasy disks. Chilled dough spreads slowly, giving the sugars time to caramelize and the center time to stay soft.
Pull them early. Underbaked centers that look "almost done" in the oven are perfect on the counter five minutes later. Trust the residual heat.
Chop chocolate, don't just use chips. A chopped chocolate bar creates irregular shards and puddles of melted chocolate in a way standard chips can't match.
Walnuts or pecans: Toast and roughly chop ¾ cup, then fold them in with the chocolate. Toast the nuts first—it makes a world of difference in flavor.
Espresso powder: Add 1 teaspoon along with the dry ingredients to deepen the chocolate flavor without any coffee taste.
Dried cherries: Swap half the chocolate for ¾ cup of dried cherries and a handful of white chocolate chips.
Flaky-salt fanatics: Increase the finishing salt slightly and add a pinch of smoked salt for a faint, campfire quality.