Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you've never worked with brown butter, you don't know what you've been missing! Chocolate chip cookies were the first thing I baked "on my own" about 50 years ago. So, this recipe comes with 50 years of experimenting & am happy to share with you. This recipe contains affiliate links. Should you make a purchase using a link, we may earn a small commission at no cost to you.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, optional, brown half of it
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2-1/2 cup all purpose flour, plus up to 1/2 cup more if needed
- optional flaky or coarse sea salt
- 1-1/2 cup chocolate chips/chunks, blend of dark & milk chocolate is nice. Reserve 1/4 cup for tops of cookies if desired.
Instructions
- Brown the butter. Place butter in light colored pan if you have. If not, any will work, but use one with higher sides. Cook at medium heat on stovetop stirring constantly.
- After butter gets foamy, it will turn a golden brown color. Be patient. This takes several minutes. Remove from heat & transfer to a large bowl. There may be some dark flecks on the bottom. Use it all! Place in refrigerator for at least 10 minutes to let it cool, stirring every few minutes. Or you can brown it up to several days before, store in refrigerator & let soften slightly before using.
- Preheat oven to 350°, unless you are going to chill your cookie dough prior to baking. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liner.
- Using an electric mixer, blend butters & sugars on low speed. Add eggs & vanilla & continue mixing on low until well blended.
- Add the dry ingredients. If too sticky to handle, gradually stir in more flour with a mixing spoon & then stir in the chocolate chips. Dough should be soft, but not crumbly (too much flour) or sticky (not enough flour).
- Using a cookie scoop or spoon, drop dough in desired size on baking sheet. Slightly flatten. Larger cookies will generally be more chewy. Place some chips on the tops of cookies if desired for appearance.
- Ideally, bake one test cookie first. If it spreads too much & gets flat, add more flour. It's better to add too little flour initially, than too much! Refrigerating the dough for 1/2- 1 hour will also help prevent your cookies from spreading too much & getting flat.
- Bake on bottom rack of oven for approximately 4 minutes. Move to middle rack in oven & continue baking for an additional 5-7 minutes. If baking a test cookie, be sure to use a timer so you can adjust accordingly. Cookie size & consistency of the dough will determine the ideal baking time.
- When cookies look baked around the edges, but slightly underbaked in the middle, remove from oven. They will finish setting up as they cool. Overbaking will make them hard.
- If desired, sprinkle with sea salt immediately after removing from oven.
- Allow to cool on wire cookie rack.
Notes
You can refrigerate the dough for several days or freeze to bake later if desired. You can also use this recipe without browning the butter if you don't have the extra time that takes. The brown butter just really takes them to a new level of deliciousness. Very few recipes will tell you to bake on both the bottom & middle rack. This is how I learned to bake cookies with my mother, over 50 years ago, & still do it today. Otherwise, I find the bottoms tend to get overdone. Moving them to the middle of the oven really helps to get them evenly baked, in whatever type of oven you have. Baking cookies is an art! If you are a new baker, be patient with yourself. Knowing how much flour to use & when to take them out of the oven are the most important steps. And remember, it won't always be the same. The size of your eggs & the temperature of your butter are two factors that can affect how much flour you will need. The more you bake, the easier it will get. I'm happy to help if I can!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!