Desserts · Cookies
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
There is a moment, somewhere between the third and fourth minute of melting butter, when the kitchen stops smelling like butter and starts smelling like toffee. That is the whole secret of this cookie. If you have ever wondered why bakery cookies taste deeper and rounder than the ones from the back of the chocolate-chip bag, this is the answer: brown butter.
I have been making some version of this cookie since I was nine years old, standing on a kitchen stool in my grandmother's house in late August. She never measured anything, which made writing this recipe down a small act of detective work spread across about two hundred batches. What follows is the version my readers have made, by their own count, more than any other recipe on this site.
Why brown butter changes everything
Butter is about 16–18% water. When you melt it and keep going, that water boils off and the milk solids left behind toast against the bottom of the pan, turning amber and throwing off that nutty, caramelized aroma. Those toasted solids are pure flavor. Skipping this step gives you a perfectly fine cookie. Doing it gives you the cookie people text you about.
The trade-off is moisture. Because you have driven off the water, we add a single extra tablespoon of milk back into the dough and lean slightly higher on brown sugar, which is hygroscopic and keeps the centers chewy for days (assuming they last days, which in my house they do not).
A note on chilling
Please chill the dough. I know. I am also impatient, and I have run the side-by-side test more times than is reasonable. Thirty minutes in the fridge lets the flour hydrate and the butter firm up, so the cookies spread slowly and bake tall with those craggy, crackly tops instead of going flat and greasy. If you can manage a full overnight rest, the flavor deepens even further.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226g) unsalted butter
- 1¼ cups (250g) packed light brown sugar
- ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon whole milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2½ cups (315g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus flaky salt to finish
- 2 cups (340g) chopped dark chocolate or chips
Instructions
- Brown the butter in a light-colored pan over medium heat, swirling, until amber and nutty, 5–7 minutes. Pour into a large bowl and cool 10 minutes.
- Whisk in both sugars, then the eggs, yolk, milk, and vanilla until glossy.
- Fold in the flour, baking soda, and salt until just combined, then the chocolate.
- Chill the dough at least 30 minutes (or overnight).
- Scoop into 3-tablespoon balls, space well on lined sheets, and finish with flaky salt.
- Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 11–13 minutes, until the edges are set but the centers look slightly underdone. Cool on the sheet 5 minutes.
Reader tips
Hundreds of you have made this, and the comments are full of gold. A few favorites: brown the butter a day ahead and refrigerate it; press a few extra chocolate pieces onto the tops right out of the oven for the bakery look; and if your cookies spread too much, your butter was likely still warm when you mixed in the sugar.
If you make these, I would love to hear how they turn out. This little site has grown entirely because home cooks keep showing up, batch after batch, and telling each other what worked.