Chocolate chip cookies are scrumptious, chewy, chocolate-y, and so darn good! I must warn you, once you bite into a cookie, you can’t control yourself. You’ll eat all of them.
Sometimes a warm chocolate cookie is all you need to forget a frustrating day. Lucky for you, this recipe will definitely help with that.
The Brown Butter
I’ve been working on this chocolate chip cookie recipe for a while. Through all my test runs, adding the brown butter made a huge difference. Basically it just elevated the classic chocolate chip cookie to a whole new level. Now let’s talk about the difference between brown butter and burnt butter. Sometimes people have this misconception that brown butter means burnt butter. There is a difference between brown and simply burnt butter. Brown butter is that beautiful caramel color. The color comes from cooking the milk solids inside that butter for a few minutes. If you didn’t know butter contains 80% fat and 20% a mixture of milk solids/water.
When you allow the butter to cook for a few minutes you’ll start to notice a pleasant smell. The smell is a combination of roasted nuts and caramel. If the butter cooks for just a few minutes more. You’ll notice an unpleasant smell and unfortunately the butter is now burnt. There’s a fine line between the brown and burnt butter. It’s important to watch the butter carefully in order to avoid an undesired product. Using burnt butter to make chocolate chip cookies would produce a burnt taste cookie. Even if only baked to a chewy consistency.
How do you make brown butter? Using a small or medium sized saucepan add 1 or 2 sticks of unsalted butter. Melt this butter over a medium-high heat. In order to see the color of the butter, I recommend using a light colored pan or turning on the light over the stove. Whisk the pan around occasionally. The butter will begin to brown when foam occurs. Once you notice a nutty scent, remove the butter from the heat.
The Chocolate for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
If your thinking the chocolate does not matter. I’m sorry to tell you, that is the wrong kind of thinking. A chocolate cookie is all about the chocolate. So picking out a high quality chocolate that melts to perfection is key. Remember if you would not personally eat the chocolate by itself. Then, it should not be used in any recipe. In this recipe, chocolate bars are used because they are versatile and can be chopped up. Then, folded into the cookie dough. Which brands of chocolate bars should you use? There’s plenty to choose from, personally I’ve only used these brands: Guittard, Ghirardelli, and Baker’s.
Another type of chocolate used in this recipe are chips/wafers. What’s the difference? Chocolate chips are small, shiny, and soft. When baked chocolate chips keep the same shape. The only downsized to using chocolate chips are the preservatives or stabilizers used to create them. These types of ingredients are not natural and give sort of a waxy texture. If using chocolate chips, instead of wafers I recommend using high quality chocolate chips. Such as Ghirardelli chocolate chips. Now let’s talk chocolate wafers! Wafers are small, thin, disc-shaped pieces of chocolate. This type of chocolate does not contain stabilizers, which is why it’s used, instead of chocolate chips.
Chocolate Cacao Percentage
To make the perfect chocolate chip cookie you have to pick right cacao percentage. In this recipe, we use two different cacao percentages as well as shapes. First, let’s talk about the chocolate bar percentage. For these cookies, I used semisweet/bittersweet chocolate bars. Unless a chocolate fanatic it’s hard to distinguish between semi/bitter sweet chocolate. Either or will provide the same taste to the cookie. This type of chocolate is 60-70% cacao and can be used for just about any recipe. Not just cookies. The chocolate wafers used are also roughly 70% cacao. I found that when using more milky wafers made the cookies too sweet and the wrong color.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Making
Now to the fun part…making the chocolate chip cookies! Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. To prevent the cookies from sticking to the cookie sheet add parchment paper or silicon baking mat sheet. Personally, I like using the silicon mat sheet because it prevents wasting paper. Unless the parchment paper used is recycled. Anyways, using a sauce pan over medium heat melt the two sticks of unsalted butter. Remove from the heat when a nutty aroma occurs.
Next add the brown butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar to an electric mixer. Mix until smooth. While mixing add all the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, baking soda, and kosher salt) into a separate bowl and mix well. After the sugar and butter have become smooth, add in the two eggs and vanilla extract. Mix well, roughly 1 minute. Then, add in the dry ingredients and continue to mix until well combined. Next, remove the bowl from the electric mixer. Fold in the chocolate wafers and chopped up chocolate. Allow the dough to fully absorb the brown butter (1-2 hours) before baking. After an hour or so, using a cookie scoop add the dough to the baking sheet. Bake the cookies for 8-11 minutes. Allow to cool before transferring to a cooling rack.
Enjoy!
Looking for more Chocolate Goodies?
Check out these links below:
- Classic Yellow Birthday Cake with chocolate ganache and chocolate Swiss Meringue buttercream
- Keto Chocolate cupcakes with espresso chocolate frosting
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Unsalted butter
- 2 cups All-purpose flour
- 2 Large eggs room temperature
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 cup Dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup Granulated sugar
- 3/4 tsp Kosher salt
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 cup Dark chocolate Wafers/disc 70% cocao
- 1/2 cup Semisweet/Bittersweet chocolate chopped
Instructions
- Using a saucepan over medium heat add the unsalted butter. Allow the butter to melt with occasional stirring of the pan. Cook the butter for 5-8 minutes. The butter will begin to brown when foam occurs. Once you notice a nutty scent, remove the butter from the heat. Add the brown butter to the bowl of an electric mixer.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, and kosher salt. Set aside.
- Chop up the semisweet chocolate into little chunks. Set aside.
- Using an electric mixer on medium speed, mix together the brown butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Mix until well combined.
- Next add the eggs and vanilla extract to the electric mixer. Mix well. Lastly, add in the flour mixture. Continue to mix for 1 minute.
- Remove the bowl from the electric mixer. Fold in the chocolate wafers and chopped semisweet chocolate. Allow the dough to rest at room temperature uncovered for 1-2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Using a 1 ½ tablespoon cookie scoop, portion out the cookie dough on parchment paper. Leave at least 3 inches between each ball of cookie dough. Do not flatten out the cookie dough.
- Bake the cookies for 8-11 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.
- Repeat this process for the remaining cookie dough.