Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Aka the best chocolate chip cookie ever. They’re made with nutty brown butter, lush chocolate pools, and a touch of espresso powder. It all gets topped with a salty punch. It’s the essential chocolate chip cookie for every season!
This chocolate chip cookie…is the best cookie I’ve ever had.
These are the cookies you serve at your holiday dessert spread. The ones you sandwich with ice cream in the summer. The ones you bring to your grandma’s house.
They’re easy and they come out so much better than your classic chocolate chip cookie recipe.
When they come out of the oven, they’re gooey. Upon first bite, they’re gleefully nutty from the brown butter and crisp on the edges. The chocolate pool is like sweet lava, which is balanced with the umami like tang from the flaked salt.
They also keep well in an airtight container for a few days, and I like to warm mine back up for a few seconds before I dive into it.
While, yes, you can make a solid cookie without brown butter, you can’t make an EXCEPTIONAL cookie without it and I stand by that. Chefs are always preaching about depth of flavor, and the deeper you go (and the more balanced), the better whatever you’re making will turn out. The brown butter absolutely represents that sentiment, and acts as a flavor booster. So, for that reason, I do not recommend skipping on browning the butter in this recipe.
For the brown butter, you want to cook it until it develops dark brown solids at the bottom. The solids will be very dark, but not burnt and the butter will be brownish-yellow. You want the butter to be this dark otherwise you won’t taste the brown butter in the cookie, so be sure it reaches the color of the photo below.
In addition to that, it is integral that you use chopped dark chocolate instead of chocolate chips. Chips are made with added ingredients so that they hold their shape, which is great, but not ideal for a chunky cookie. Buying chocolate bars and chopping it up allows the chocolate to melt and pool while it’s baking, intertwining itself within the cookie!
Once the dough comes together, you go ahead and scoop all of the cookie dough balls onto a tray and chill it for about 45 minutes. This is so that the flour can be absorbed by the butter and help keep the cookie more stable and enhance the flavor, believe it or not!
Then, you place 6 on a baking sheet at a time and bake away!
To see the process, check out this IGTV!
I hope you make these cookies, and if you do, please let me know what you think and tag me in any photos!
BROWN BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES
Makes about 30 cookies
Ingredients
3 ½ sticks (395g) unsalted butter*
350g all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp instant espresso powder**
1 ½ tsp salt
160g granulated sugar
140g dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
½ tbsp vanilla extract
375g dark chocolate (not chips), chopped into medium/large chunks (I use 72%)
flaked sea salt for topping
Instructions
Start by making the brown butter. I make my brown butter the night before, as it needs to be solidified and softened to room temperature for the recipe.
In a medium pot (use one that’s bigger than what you’d think, as butter splatters) melt the 3 ½ sticks of butter over medium heat. Continue to cook and stir with a rubber spatula, scraping the sides, until it develops dark brown butter solids at the bottom of the pot and the butter itself is looking dark yellow-brown in color (see reference photo). This takes me about 5-10 minutes to reach if the butter is at a boil. Once browned, pour it into a glass container and set it into the fridge to cool overnight or until it is solid.
Bring the solidified brown butter and eggs to room temperature, and grab a tray to scoop all of the cookies on once the dough is done.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking power, espresso powder and salt, then set aside.
To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add 300g of the room temp brown butter, the granulated sugar, and brown sugar.
On high speed, beat the butter and sugars until it becomes light and fluffy, scraping as you go. This will take about 3-5 minutes.
Scrape the bowl, then add one egg at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping both the sides and bottom of the bowl.
Add in the vanilla extract and mix once more, scraping the bowl afterwards.
Add in half of the flour mixture, and beat on a low speed until it is somewhat combined. Then, add in the second half of the flour mixture and mix until it is almost fully mixed, but you can still see some flour bits. Scrape from the bottom of the bowl up to make sure no dry ingredients settle on the bottom.
Add in the chopped dark chocolate and mix again on low for less than 30 seconds or so. We don’t want to over-mix!
Using a 1-inch scoop or a tablespoon, scoop heaping dollops (about the size of a golf ball) onto the tray. They can be close together as we’re not baking them yet. I usually get around 30 or so cookies. Once done, cover them and place them into the refrigerator to chill for 45 minutes.
While they’re chilling, preheat the oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment.
Grab 6 dough balls and shape them a bit more to look like even circles. The secret to getting chocolate pools on top of the cookie is to ensure a large piece of chocolate is visible at the top of the cookie dough ball. I usually grab a large piece from the dough ball and place it on top while I form it. Place the 6 dough balls onto the tray, evenly spaced apart, and bake for 9 minutes.
Once the 9 minutes are up, rotate the pan so that the side that was facing the front is now facing the back. While rotating, allow the pan to drop onto the rack. This also helps the chocolate pool. Bake for another 2 or so minutes until the cookie is nicely browned, then remove the cookies from the oven and top with flaked salt.
Allow the cookies to cool to room temp, then store them in an air tight container for 3-4 days. Of course, they’re always best the day of!
Notes
*This should be enough butter once solidified and weighed, but if you find it’s coming up short, just add enough extra plain unsalted butter to meet the 300g in step 5 of the recipe.
**The espresso powder is technically optional, but highly recommended. It will not keep you up and you will not taste it! All it does is help enhance the flavor of the chocolate/cookie in general.
