Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

TL;DR: Jump to the recipe or jump to the super short, condensed recipe.

I know all two of you who read this blog are here for my Computer Science content, but who doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies??

The Setup

I’ve been cooking and baking since I was little. My parents are both great cooks with adventurous tastes, so I grew up eating tons of good food and learning how to make it. One of the earliest things I remember baking are the classic, back-of-the-chocolate-chip-bag recipe Toll House cookies. They’d always come out a little differently; sometimes they were soft and chewy, sometimes crispy and crunchy. We used butter or margerine, just depending on what we had around. We didn’t know how or why the recipe worked, and we didn’t really care – the cookies were perfect anyway.

… well, the cookies were really good. The problem is, some batches were a little better than others. I always liked them chewy, but sometimes they’d come out crispy. Eventually we figured out that cookies made with butter were softer than the ones made with margerine; that helped, but there was still so much variability in the finished product that I began to get frustrated. By the time I was baking these cookies in college, I started to feel like they had lost some of their charm.

A New Approach

One evening, a trail of YouTube recommendations led me to no fewer than four high-quality videos chocolate chip cookie recipes. Call it a stroke of luck or just the algorithm at work, but all of a sudden I had all of the resources I needed to fix my cookie problem. Here’s what I watched (and I highly recommend you do too):

The recipes in these videos were similar to the one from my childhood, but there were two important differences. First, these recipes were a little more advanced. Each one added some interesting new flavors and/or procedures that aimed to elevate the otherwise simple cookies. Second, many of these videos talked through the food science behind their choices of ingredients and processes. This was a huge improvement from the recipe on the chocolate chip bag – the extra context made it much easier to diagnose problems, explain differences in batches, and experiement with modifications.

I got to work on my own recipe. I took my favorite ideas from each, and ended up with something that I’m pretty excited about. Full disclosure, this recipe is pretty darn close to the Cook’s Illustrated recipe from the America’s Test Kitchen video, but I worked in a few ingredient recommendations from the Tasty one. The other two videos provided fewer direct ideas, but Babish and Stella were awesome inspiration anyway.

At this point you probably just want the recipe, so here you go.

The Recipe

Dry Ingredients

5 oz All Purpose Flour
3.8 oz Bread Flour

The Tasty recipe recommended bread flour for added chewiness. The ratio I tried was just a guess, and in the end the cookies might have been a little bit too chewy. I’d consider shifting a little more towards the AP flour next time, but I definitely like the idea of at least some bread flour.
0.5 tsp Baking Soda
1.25 c Chocolate Chips

I used normal semi-sweet chips this time, and I think it turned out really well. Next time I’ll see what difference chopped up baking chocolate makes.

Wet Ingredients

1.75 stick Butter
3.5 oz Granulated Sugar
5.3 oz Light Brown Sugar

Most of the recipes called for dark brown sugar, but I don’t tend to keep it around. If I remember to buy some I might try the dark brown sugar, or I might just try adding a teaspoon of molasses.
1 XL Egg
1 XL Egg Yolk

The standard Toll House recipe uses two eggs, but the America’s Test Kitchen video said that removing the second egg white actually makes the cookies more moist. I believe it.
1 tsp Instant Espresso Powder

This is another addition from the Tasty recipe. Coffee is great with chocolate, and I’m a caffeine addict, so why not?
2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Prepare dough:

Brown 1 stick of butter in a stainless steel saucepan. Heat and stir/swirl pan until the foaming stops and the milk solids begin to brown. Remove from heat.

Browned butter is magic. Three out of the four videos recommend it, and there’s a good reason why. You can tell the difference instantly. The batter smells and tastes like toffee. I’ll never make this recipe with normal butter again. Keep an eye on the butter while you’re browning it, it burns pretty easily.
Add the remaining 0.75 stick of butter to the pan and allow the butter to melt together. Cool slighly.
Combine wet ingredients in a bowl and stir for 30 seconds or so, until everything is combined and no lumps of brown sugar remain.
Wait 3 minutes, then stir for another 30 seconds. Repeat three times, until mixture is smooth and glossy.

This process comes from the Cook’s Illustrated recipe, and the idea is to dissolve the sugar without adding too much air. I definitely think it made a difference in the consistency of the dough.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet. This can be done fairly easily in one installment, folding with a spatula. Do not over-mix.

Adding the chocolate to the flour and folding by hand ensures that you won’t overwork the dough. It also makes the dough super easy to make without a stand mixer.
Chill the dough for 15-30 minutes.
Turn the dough out onto a piece of wax or parchment paper, shape into a rough rectangle, and cut into 16 equal pieces. Shape the pieces into balls.

This is really the only innovation that I came up with myself. Chocolate chip cookie recipes always give instructions for scooping the cookies, but I’ve found that scooping can lead to poor chocolate chip distribution. No one wants the sad cookie that you scooped at the end with only two chocolate chips left. Cutting the dough into pieces makes it easier to get consistent cookies with consistent chocolate. If you hit a chocolate chip with the kife, just cut right through.
Refrigerate for up to 3 days (potentially longer?).

I need to see how long these keep before they’re baked. Babish claims that the batter actually keeps getting better for a few days, but I haven’t done the tests myself. I also want to know if you can freeze the dough balls – I bet you can.

When ready to bake:

Preheat oven to 375F.
While the oven is preheating, let cookie dough come to room temperature.
Place dough balls onto parchment paper and flatten slightly. Top with coarse sea salt if desired.

You should desire. The salt makes a huge difference. Don’t flatten the cookies too much, but they do need a little help spreading out.
Bake for 12 minutes, or until the cookies are browned on the edges and not completely set in the middle.

They’ll finish cooking on the tray. Or maybe they won’t. Cookie dough is amazing.
Let cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, and then move to a wire rack to cool completely.

You’re not going to let them cool completely.

The Results

The cookies are pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. They’re moist, chewy, crispy at the edges, not too sweet, and basically everything else positive that people have said about a chocolate chip cookie. I claim very little credit for the recipe, but I am fairly excited about my idea to ditch the scoop or spoon and just cut the cookies into the right size. Overall I’m mostly just happy because I’m going to be able to make these cookies for any and all cookie-appropriate occasions.

Here’s the recipe one more time without my interruptions…