These brown butter chocolate chip cookies have everything you want in a good cookie – pools of chocolate, crispy edges, and a gooey soft center. Plus, they have some bonus ingredients that elevate your average homemade cookie to bakery-level greatness.
What makes these cookies so great?
I would consider four things to be the difference between a sad, flat, cookie and a sturdy, delicious-textured cookie. These are the tiny changes in ingredients and techniques that make all the difference.
- Browned butter: This leads to SUCH a richer and deeper flavor. Browning the butter leads to caramelization, which helps add a nutty and toasty flavor. However, I would be cautious about using browned butter in a recipe that originally calls for softened butter – it can throw off the ratio of liquid to dry ingredients and lead to a flat cookie if the recipe hasn’t been properly adjusted.
- Chocolate chunks rather than chocolate chips: chocolate chunks make a cookie that has continuous flecks of chocolate rather than semi-melted pockets of chocolate chips.
- Don’t overbake: trust the process! Even if they don’t look “done”, pull the cookies out after 10-12 minutes. They will finish the baking process on the cooling rack and be the perfect soft, but fully cooked texture
- Sea salt flakes: this is an instant way to elevate SO many baked goods. Plus, one container of flaky sea salt will last you months.
And to address the elephant in the room…
Why would a dietitian recommend making cookies with your kids?
Yes, cookies are not the healthiest snack or dessert for kids. However, there are valuable things that can come out of making this recipe with your kids.
- Helps your kids get more involved in the kitchen. Getting kids to be interested in food preparation is a huge win. Baking yummy desserts is a way to create a general interest in the kitchen which will hopefully transfer over into an active involvement during mealtime.
- Helps create a neutral relationship with dessert. We want to prevent children from treating dessert like a prize or something to obsess over. This often happens as a result of dessert following good behavior or dessert being reserved only for special occasions. If dessert is served frequently (in moderation), there is a higher chance your kids will learn to use portion control and have a better relationship with food.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
These brown butter chocolate chip cookies have everything you want in a good cookie – pools of chocolate, crispy edges, and a gooey soft center. Plus, they have some bonus ingredients that elevate your average homemade cookie to bakery-level greatness.
Servings: 16 cookies
Calories: 389kcal
Ingredients
- 2 sticks butter, unsalted
- 3 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- 2 bittersweet chocolate bars, roughly chopped 8oz
- flaky sea salt for topping
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F
- To make the brown butter, heat the two sticks of butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat until it turns a light amber color. This should take between 5-6 minutes
- Once browned, take the butter off the heat and place it into the freezer to cool and harden. The goal is for the butter to become almost completely re-solid, similar to the consistency of softened butter
- While the butter is cooling, whisk together the dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
- In a separate mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine the brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, vanilla, and browned butter. Whisk until thoroughly combined
- Add the dry ingredients to the mixture and mix until just combined
- Mix in the chopped bittersweet chocolate, saving about 1/4 cup to top the cookies
- Form the dough into 16 equal balls and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Flatten the dough balls slightly, and top with the reserved chocolate chunks
- Bake for 13 minutes. Leave on the baking sheet until completely cooled
- Top with flaky sea salt and enjoy
Delicious!
Good luck!