Favorite Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie

The caramel goodness of brown butter and brown sugar, the crispy edges, the barely thick and soft center, and the melty little chocolate chips.

The caramelly goodness of brown butter and brown sugar, the crispy edges, the barely thick and soft center, and melty chocolate chips in little puddles, with just enough salt sprinkled on top to cut through the sweetness, will make you want to eat five of them.

These browned butter chocolate chip cookies are my first favorite because they combine the best from both the thick-cookie and thin-cookie worlds. They have a satisfying crunch around the edges AND thick centers that you can really sink your teeth in. Best. Of. Both. Worlds.

The second thing I love about these cookies is how they shine. And by shine, I mean that they have a rich caramel taste thanks to the browned butter.

Ingredients for Browned Butter Choco Chip Cookies

You’ll need to invite your usual chocolate chip party guests if you want these beautiful, crunchy, nutty gems. This time, it’s going to be a little fancier!

• Unsalted Butter
• Granulated sugar and brown sugar
• vanilla extract
• eggs
• All-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt
• Chocolate chips or chunks (I like dark chocolate)
• parchment paper

How to Make Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie

These are more complicated. It takes some attention to the butter, a few chilling times, and some extra willpower not to eat all of the dough before baking. Beyond that, it’s not overly complex.

1. Brown butter Cut butter into small pieces to ensure even melting. Stirrle in a pan on medium heat. Once the butter turns golden brown, it will start to bubble and foam. Remove from heat, and then transfer the butter to a large bowl to cool.
2. Prepare the dough. The brown butter will be cooled (make sure you scrape all the golden brown bits in!) The sugars and brown butter will be added first. Next, add the dry ingredients and eggs. Stop eating those chocolate chips.
3. Let it rest! The dough will need to cool down before adding the chocolate chips so that they do not melt. Add your chocolate chips once it has cooled completely. Let the dough rest for a few minutes to hydrate the flour, and allow the browned butter to do its magic.
4. Bake and Scoop! The drill is well known. The edges are cooked, and the middle is a bit soft and puffy.
5. (Okay, let’s rest again). Do not be angry. It allows the middle to sink and become super dense and barely thin. Everything is chewy-crisp. What a wonderful dream.

Classic chocolate chip cookies vs. Browned butter

Pinch of Yum has a large selection of cookies, but we can easily agree that two of them are the best: the original soft chocolate chip cookies and these brand-new browned butter cookies.

It is my civic responsibility to give you an in-depth cookie breakdown of each of these recipes and why they are awesome.

• Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (the ones you are looking at right now) These cookies are artwork. These cookies have a complex and rich flavor. They have more of that crispy-meets-soft-and-yummy texture. These are almost fancy and grown-up. It takes more effort. The reward is that the taste and texture are more nuanced. It’s not difficult to make them, but they are not easy. They are perfect for impressing someone, even yourself. This is the ideal time to tell you that this cookie dough is absolutely delicious. AMAZING. Next level. The browned butter flavor is most prominent. I don’t recommend eating raw cookie batter; I’m only saying, okay?
• Soft chocolate chip cookies are the original POY favorite. These cookies don’t require any fuss or complications. There are no fancy steps or ingredients. No chilling time is required. Just a small batch of underbaked chocolate chip cookies. These are the cookies I make when I have friends over within an hour. These cookies have a less nuanced taste than the browned-butter cookies and are less likely to win high-level baking competitions, but that may not matter, depending on what you’re doing. I recently made some of these cookies and gave them to our nanny. She texted me that evening to tell me they were the best she had ever tasted. Sometimes, the simplest recipes are best.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
•  1 cup White sugar
•  1 cup Brown sugar
•  One tablespoon vanilla
•  Two eggs
•  Two and a half cups. Add two tablespoons to the recipe. Please see the FAQs for more information on how to spoon the flour and the amount of flour.
•  One teaspoon of baking soda
•  One teaspoon of Baking powder
•  Half a teaspoon Salt
•  Half a cup of Chocolate chips or chunks

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INSTRUCTIONS

Brown butter: Cut butter into small pieces to ensure even melting. Melt butter in a large stainless steel pan over medium heat. As the butter melts, swirl the pan several times. Use a heatproof spatula and scrape the butter along the bottom of the pan. The butter will turn golden brown quickly, and you can smell it. Remove the butter from heat when it turns golden brown. Transfer it to a glass measuring cup or bowl that is cool. Be careful not to burn the butter. This entire process should only take 5 minutes. Allow the butter to cool down for 5-10 minutes while you prepare and measure everything else.

Add butter, sugars, and vanilla to a bowl. Beat at medium-high speed for 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the eggs, and beat them for 1-2 mins until they are shiny and smooth.

Add the baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until combined to form a shiny, dense dough. Allow the dough to cool for 15-20 minutes. (If you add chocolate chips at this time, they’ll melt).

Chocolate chunks or chips can be added by hand (it is sometimes easier to mix this with your hands). Let the dough rest another 20-30 min. This will help hydrate the flour and bring the flavor of the browned butter further into the cookies.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Scoop or roll your cookie dough into 3-tablespoon-sized balls and place them on a baking tray. Bake for nine minutes until the edges are cooked, but the centers remain slightly soft and puffy.

Let the cookies cool for 15 minutes after removing them from the oven. This isn’t easy. I KNOW. As they rest, their middles will sink and densify, giving you that crispy outer layer with the underbaked, barely thick center.