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Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are pure heaven in a cookie.
Somehow, I never tire of cookies. No matter how many hundreds, maybe even thousands, of batches I’ve made in my life I still crave them regularly.
That’s why I’m always experimenting and tweaking cookie recipes in the kitchen, especially chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes all I want is an ultra-rich, gooey, and chewy chocolate chip cookie1
These Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are absolute perfection because they are loaded with rich and nutty brown butter, butterscotch flavors, and pure chocolate.
Chocolate chunk cookies can easily become too ooey and gooey (too much of a good thing exists!) so I made sure these were the perfect balance of gooey, chewy, and crunchy.
I’ve included tons of tips below so your cookies turn out perfectly! Best of all? These cookies require no electric mixer required.
How to Make Perfect Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Browning the Butter
Follow the directions closely for browning the butter. It’s super simple, just be sure not to walk away from it. It quickly goes from browned to burnt. Be sure to scrape all the brown bits into the mixing bowl – that’s where the flavor lives!
Do You Have to Use Bread Flour?
You don’t absolutely have to use bread flour, but it adds a ton of chewy texture to these Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, so I always have some on hand. If you don’t have bread flour, then just use all-purpose flour in place of the bread flour in the recipe, but note that you will lose some chewiness. Make sure to weigh your flour accurately. If you add too much flour, your cookies may end up dry, dense, or crumbly and barely spread.
Sugar
A high ratio of dark brown sugar makes these Brown Butter Cookies moist, chewy, and rich in flavor. I love it. Again if you don’t have any on hand, you can use light brown sugar but your cookies will lose a little bit of awesomeness. Please don’t reduce the sugar in these cookies – learn why here.
Chocolate
- This Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe calls for both regular semisweet chocolate chips as well as chocolate baking wafers.
- I used the Guittard brand of semisweet chocolate wafers. You can also find these specifically at Whole Foods, Williams Sonoma, or Sur la Table.
- You could alternatively use the Valrhona brand of wafers (they call theirs “chocolate feves”). They don’t hold their shape like chocolate chips do. Instead, they turn into little chocolate puddles that are a delight to bite into.
- If you can’t find baking wafers/feves, feel free to use 2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips instead.
Sea Salt
This is optional, but you can add a sprinkling of flaky finishing sea salt to the cookies right after pulling them out of the oven. I love the salty-sweet combination, and I think it really adds something special to these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.
My Best Tips for Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:
- I always use a kitchen scale to weigh my ingredients, especially flour. Incorrectly measured flour can lead to cookies that are tough, crumbly, dry, too thick, or just blah.
- I also swear by using an oven thermometer to ensure baking accuracy. Most ovens run a little hot or cold, so checking the temperature with an oven thermometer ensures the best cookies possible.
- Use a quality unlined light-colored baking tray, like these ones. Line with parchment paper for best results. The pan you bake on has a huge impact on your cookies. Learn more about the best and worst baking pans here.
- Don’t skip the chill period!! More on that just below.
Chilling the Dough
I know it’s annoying to have to wait to enjoy cookies, but I promise you it’s SO worth it. Both the taste and texture of these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies improve as the dough chills. Freezing does not work the same as chilling, so there are no shortcuts here. Learn more about how and why to chill cookie doughs in this article here.
Size
I’ve found these are best made as big cookies, using a 3-Tablespoon large cookie scoop. This provides the perfect texture: crisp at the edges, slightly gooey in the center, and chewy throughout. If you want to make smaller cookies, use a 1.5-Tablespoon cookie scoop and reduce the baking time to about 10 minutes.
Portioning the Cookie Dough Before vs. After Chilling
- I recommend following the directions in the recipe for chilling the dough in one big mass, and then portioning the dough because it prevents the dough from drying out while chilling.
- However, if you’re finding it too challenging to scoop the Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie dough at this point, feel free to scoop before chilling.
- There’s a bit more risk that your dough will dry out in the fridge this way, so just be sure to store the cookie dough balls in an airtight container or good quality ziptop bag, to prevent them from drying out.
- Then simply bake the pre-portioned Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies straight from the fridge after the 24-72 hour chill time!
Can I Freeze Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?
Yes – but make sure you chill the dough first, before freezing. Learn why here. I like to portion out the dough and place it on a baking sheet, then freeze just until solid. Transfer the frozen dough balls to a ziptop bag and store in the freezer for up to 6 weeks. This way, you can bake off small batches of fresh cookies whenever you feel like it! Check out my full post on how to freeze cookie dough and bake from frozen here.
More AMAZING Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes:
See ALL of my chocolate chip cookie recipes + tips & insights into the SCIENCE of cookie baking here!
-
2
sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter
-
1/2
(100 grams) cup granulated sugar
-
1 1/4
cups
(250 grams) lightly packed dark brown sugar
-
1 1/2
cups
(190 grams) all-purpose flour
-
1
cup
(127 grams) bread flour
-
1/4
teaspoon
baking powder
-
1
teaspoon
baking soda
-
1
teaspoon
fine sea salt
-
2
large eggs plus 1 egg yolk,
at room temperature
-
2
teaspoons
vanilla
-
1 1/2
cups
(255 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
-
1
cup
(140 grams) semisweet chocolate baking wafers
(from Guittard or Valrhona)
-
In a small saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Swirling the pan occasionally, continue to cook the butter. It should become foamy with audible cracking and popping noises. Once the crackling stops continue to swirl the pan until the butter develops a nutty aroma and brown bits start to form at the bottom. Once the bits are amber in color, about 2 to 3 minutes after the popping stops, remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Add in the sugars, stir, then set aside to cool completely.
-
In a medium bowl combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
-
To the browned butter mixture, add the eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla and stir with a rubber spatula until combined. Slowly stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and wafers.
-
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours. Let dough sit at room temperature just until it is soft enough to scoop.
-
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
-
Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls and drop onto prepared baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each piece of dough to spread.
-
Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
This post was originally published in 2015 and recently updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
September Baking Challenge
This recipe was the September 2020 selection for our monthly baking challenge. Every month you can join a challenge by baking the recipe and snapping a photo for a chance to win prizes! Learn more about my monthly baking challenges here. Check out everyone’s cookies:
Hey Tessa! Just finished baking the cookies and they are AMAZING!Crunchy on the outside but soft and gooey in the middle. Am a vegetarian so replaced the egg with flax egg and custard powder…. But they still turned out perfect! Only thing is that I used dark brown sugar and I end up with cookies a bit darker than I like. So should I replace it with light brown sugar?
I can’t wait to try these! But I can’t find the wafers. Can I use Wilton chocolate candy melts?
I would just use more chocolate chips or chopped chocolate! That’s why I did and they turned out great!
Hey,
Do you use a convection oven for baking cookies or a regular oven? I have a convection oven and was wondering if that makes any difference
These cookies look incredible. Just perfect!
127 ounces of flour?!
This recipe is delicious! I used Trader Joe’s pound plus dark chocolate bar. I baked half of the batch immediately after mixing the dough and the other half after 24 hours in the fridge. Personally I liked the refrigerated batch more – the texture was a bit chewier and the dough became a little less runny and greasy. Without chilling was still amazing though!
I’ve used the dark chocolate bars you get from Whole Foods and the seem to melt and run. Some of the cookies just have streaks of chocolate. Is there a certain type of chocolate you use that withstands the heat?
My new favorite cookie recipe! I make cookies a lot. My daughter and I agree these are the best. I didn’t use quite as much chocolate, I accidentally dropped some, my German Shepherd was very happy to clean that up for me. So I probably used about 9 oz of chocolate and that was perfect I thought. Thank you so much for an awesome cookie Recipe.
These are so good! Thank you for sharing the recipe! 🙂
These were a hit at my house but my cookies didn’t really spread at all. Any suggestions for that?
Hi there! Can’t wait to try these cookies out. Can you share what type and brand of chocolate you use for these? Thanks!
Your cookies really look delicious. I hope it tastes good because after reading your recipe I think that this weekend I should try at my home, so I’ll get the idea about the cookies. This is the first time I’m going to prepare cookies at my home, so I think the experience will not be so bad. Thanks for sharing such different type of cookie recipe. Well, normally I like to eat a crunchy cookie but this time I’ll try your recipe. Well, I read about other types of cookies as well you can check here https://www.couponsmonk.com/blog/toothsome-cookies-will-surely-make-drool/.
I want to ask you one question for you what to do if I have to make it crunchy using this recipe? If you can answer it then it means a lot to me. I feel very glad if you can help me out.
Made these yesterday and they turned out amazing! Ran out of time, so refrigerated the rest of the cookie dough and baked another batch today, and they were even better than yesterday! This recipe is a new favorite, thank you!
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I just made these and for some reason they didn’t spread. Any ideas why?
I’ve never come across a recipe using bread flour for chocolate chip cookies. This is a great twist on the traditional cookie! I’m going to try this to see the difference in taste!
I think you’ll definitely notice a chewier texture due to the bread flour!
The best cookies I’ve ever made…we ate a whole sheet of them that night!
Can i lessen the sugar instead of 1 1/2 c of brown sugar i make it 1c.coz it’s too sweet for me.ty
I haven’t done that so I can’t say for sure, but if you give it a try let us know how it goes!
Hey, these cookies look absolutely great. Is there a way I can replace eggs?
The texture and appearance were great, but the taste wasn’t. I don’t know what it was, maybe the baking powder, but I couldn’t even eat a whole cookie.
I tried these tonight and although the texture and appearance was amazing, the taste wasn’t as good as I know it can be. Browning butter makes all the difference to me in a cookie and my other cookie recipe I follow for brown butter cookies has me refridgerate the dough for at least two hours. I noticed a big difference in the taste. I saw that in two of your other cookie recipes you refridgerated the dough….just curious why you chose not to with this one? I did save some of the dough and am refridgerating it over night and will see if it makes a difference. What would you say is the one thing that makes these thicker then other cookies, I’m wondering if it is the extra flour, bread flour, or baking powder? Thanks!
Can i use a silpat for this cookie? which is better.. silpat or parchment?
There’s pretty much no noticeable difference between cookies baked on a silapt vs. parchment, it’s just a matter of which you prefer!
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I made these this week using the following:
Central Milling High Mountain Hi Gluten flour (13.5% protein) and their AP Beehive flour (10% – 10.5% protein)
C & H cane brown sugar and cane baker’s sugar
Plugra european style butter
Callebaut 53% semi-sweet chocolate (block chocolate that i chopped to 1/2″ pieces)
Used #40 scoop (equivalent to OXO scoop)
Chilled dough overnight.
I took them to a potluck where they received average reviews. Texture and appearance was very good: thick, craggy tops; crisp bottom, nice chewy interior. The crispy exterior held nicely.
But there was something missing flavor-wise. They were a bit bland.
I agree baking by weight is essential for successful and consistent results. In baking classes I was taught to use metric weight as it is most accurate. But US units work well enough.
The recipe states weight for flour and butter, but volume measurements for the sugars. Can I assume the standard of
1 cup brown or granulated sugar = 7 ounces = 200 grams?
So then
Flours = 13.2 ounces
Sugars = 14 ounces
The difference in protein is very minimal between King Arthur AP flour (11.7%) and King Arthur Bread flour (12.7). I know I’ve made some exceptional chewy chocolate chunk cookies using King Arthur Bread flour and Softasilk cake flour (6.9%).
I stock a number of flours in my pantry including Central Milling High Mountain Hi-Gluten flour (13.5%), Central Milling Artisan Craft flour (11.5%), Central Milling Beehive AP flour (10%. – 10.5%) and Central Milling Pastry flour (10%) — and no, I have no affiliation with Central Milling. They just happen to be local and the brand of choice for the top bakeries in my area. I’m very curious now as to which combinations of protein makes the best chewy cookie–or, given the small difference in protein in the national brands of bread and AP flours whether chewiness is even a result of protein.
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I made this yesterday, but I creamed the butter instead of melting, and baked right away some cookies, they came out perfectly, puffed up, crisp around the edges and with a perfect texture i never achieved before!
Texture was so good, it wasnt greasy, it was literally perfect.
I freezed the dough and tried it today to see if it would be the same, but it wasnt :/, the cookie came thiner and it was more dense, i tried with very cold dough and room temperature dough, on different oven temperatures and it didnt come out like yesterday. What happened?? The leavening power from baking soda stoped working because of the resting period?
Please help me out :), I was sooo happy that it was perfect but now i couldnt replicate it with the same dough! Now i dont know what happened and what to do :((
Thanks in advance. (posted here and on ultimate cookie because im sooo desperate for help!)
Thanks
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Mine cookies have some kind of shiny/greasy look, I tried to reduce the butter (i reduced the flour too so the butter/flour ratio isnt too high, but its higher than the recipe). But didnt worked out.
Tried to reduce some butter and use the 375g of flour, but it was too much flour then.
So whats the problem??
Only thing is that im using only all purpose flour, maybe with bread flour and more gluten it fix that problem?
I tested alot of recipes and cant find out =(
Thanks! Happy new year!
I follow this recipe and the taste is awesome! But I never get that crackled top texture, but just a smooth top texture.
What should i try to do to fix that?
Increase baking powder? Less butter/sugar?
Thanks 😀
I just made these cookies this evening. They looked great (just like the pictures above) and tasted fantastic! My whole family loved them! Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. I will definitely be making them again and again.
I’ve made these 3 times now, going on 4 tonight. I have a Mercedes dealership to bake cookies for.. Any who, let me just say that I myself don’t like chocolate chip cookies, but I did have one and it was good. Everyone I’ve made these for LOVES them! My fiancé and his friend ate 3 whole batches (of 8 cookies) right as they came out of the oven! haha
Wow!! Love it Sarah!
I have tried this recipe out today, super easy to make and they taste great!
However my chocolate chunks melted so the biscuits don’t quite look like yours, your look a bit more crunchy too. Any ideas or tips to help in the future?
What kind of chocolate did you use? Also, do you have an oven thermometer to make sure your cookies are baking at the right temp? What kind of baking sheet did you use?
Hi! Can you please tell me the correct weight of 1 teaspoon of baking soda and baking powder?
I weighted and the ones Im using are 5g, but on some websites it says 5g for baking powder and 7-8g for baking soda, so im confused. What would be the correct weight of your baking soda?
Thanks! 😀
Hi Laura! I actually don’t include the weight of teaspoon measurements because I find many home-use scales are too inaccurate to weigh such small amounts. It’s easier just to use a teaspoon!
Is there a reason why you used 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp baking powder in this recipe VS. 1 tsp baking soda and baking powder in the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe? What are the differences in the result?
Yep! Baking soda increases spread and since these cookies are made with melted butter, I didn’t want them to spread too much. You can learn more here: https://handletheheat.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies/
AND here: https://handletheheat.com/baking-soda-vs-baking-powder/
Sorry, I’m confused. The above question states 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp baking powder (which you agreed with), but your recipe states the opposite. Can you confirm which one is correct? Thank you!
Follow the written recipe above!
Hi! Could you provide the recipe with ingredients by weight as well? Since you’ve recommended using a kitchen scale in your tips 🙂 thanks!
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Just made these beauties.. all the way from NZ. Have to say… THE BEST choc chip cookie ever! Thank you for sharing this recipe, it’s certainly going to be filed under favourites in my cookbook 🙂
I never tire of cookies either….too much of a sweet tooth!!
Tessa, these look so amazing! They’re beautiful and delicious looking — (gorgeous photographs)! Not to mention, I love that you made them with browned butter. It’s my favorite thing to incorporate into baked goods. Yum!
Would you mind sharing what type of chocolate you use? These look fabulous!! Thanks!!
Would you mind sharing what brand of chocolate you personally use? Thanks!
These cookies look perfect! Brown butter makes everything better and I love the bread flour! Can’t wait to try these! Pinned!
Can’t wait to make these…..they look delicious!