Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter
- ¾ cup (150 g) packed dark brown sugar
- ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2¼ cups (280 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1½ cups (250 g) chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips
- Flaky sea salt, for finishing
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Instructions
- 1
Brown the butter: melt it in a light-coloured saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. It will foam, then the foam will subside. Continue cooking until the milk solids at the bottom turn deep golden-brown and smell nutty — about 5–7 minutes total. Pour into a large bowl immediately to stop the cooking. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until solidified to a soft, creamy consistency (about 45 minutes). Don't skip this — warm brown butter makes flat cookies.
- 2
Beat the cooled brown butter with both sugars until smooth and thick, about 2 minutes.
- 3
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. The mixture will look satiny.
- 4
Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Add to the wet mixture and fold until just combined.
- 5
Fold in the chopped chocolate.
- 6
Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. One hour is better; overnight is best.
- 7
Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment.
- 8
Scoop heaped tablespoons of dough onto the sheets, 2 inches apart. Do not flatten.
- 9
Bake one sheet at a time for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are golden but the centres still look underdone.
- 10
Sprinkle with flaky salt immediately. Cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack.
Notes
The brown butter is doing two things: losing water (which makes the cookies chewier and denser than the classic version) and developing hundreds of new flavour compounds through the Maillard reaction. The result tastes like toffee and toasted nuts even though the recipe is almost identical to the classic. Don't rush the browning — pale butter just smells like butter.
Discover Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sarah Kieffer
Sarah Kieffer — baker and author of 100 Cookies (Chronicle Books, 2020) — made brown butter the centrepiece of her chocolate chip cookie work. Her recipe calls for browning a full cup and a half of unsalted butter until the milk solids turn amber and nutty, then beating it with both granulated and brown sugar before adding the eggs — a sequence she credits with creating the cookie's distinctively glossy, chewy base. The result is a cookie with crisp edges, a soft centre, and a depth of flavour that Kieffer describes as impossible to achieve with plain melted butter: the brown butter, in her view, is the whole point.