Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Ridiculously flavorful! SO much depth of flavor without being overly sweet.
Texture: Incredibly chewy and gooey in the middle and a little crunchy at the edges. Perfection.
Ease: Browning the butter is an extra step, but I find the process fun and it adds SO much flavor. Other than that, this recipe is simple!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: Thick, chewy cookies with unparalleled depth of flavor.
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Loaded with rich and nutty brown butter, butterscotch flavors, and dark chocolate, these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are absolute perfection.
I have hundreds of cookie recipes on my site, but there’s something extra special about cookies made with brown butter. It provides an unparalleled depth of flavor that’s such a joy to eat.
Chocolate chunk cookies can easily become too ooey-gooey, so while testing and tweaking this recipe, I made sure these cookies were the perfect balance of gooey, chewy, and crunchy.
What Makes Cookies Chewy, Crisp, or Cakey?
My free guide reveals the ingredients and tweaks that matter.
Best of all? These cookies are super simple to make – you don’t even need an electric mixer!
Reader Love
this is the easiest, most delicious cookie i’ve ever made! my sister and i have been on the quest to find the perfect cookie, and this blows our former #1 (the jacque torres’s 72 hour cookie) out of the water. amazing!
–
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Perfect Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Browning the Butter
Brown butter is made by melting butter and then continuing to cook it until the milk solids in the butter become toasted, creating a deeply nutty, caramelized, butterscotch flavor that perfectly enhances chocolate chip cookies.
Brown butter is super simple to make – just be sure not to walk away from it as it can burn quickly. Be sure to scrape all the brown bits into the mixing bowl as that’s where the flavor lives!
Learn all my tips and tricks for browning butter in my How to Brown Butter article here.
Do I Have to Use Bread Flour?
Bread flour contains a higher percentage of protein than all-purpose flour, adding a ton of chewy texture to these Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, so I strongly recommend using it if possible.
If you don’t have bread flour, just use all-purpose flour in place of the bread flour in the recipe, but note that you will lose some chewiness.
⭐ Tessa’s Tip: 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. Too much flour also makes the cookies go stale more quickly.
The Sugar
This recipe uses the perfect amount of sugar to ensure moist, chewy cookies with the perfect amount of spread, without being too sweet. A high ratio of dark brown sugar makes these cookies moist and chewy, with a rich depth of flavor.
If needed, you can use light brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar (1:1 ratio), but your cookies will lose a little bit of moisture and flavor.
Whatever you do, don’t reduce the sugar in these cookies. Sugar does so much more beyond sweetening – learn more about sugar’s role in baking here. Note that cookies taste sweeter when served warm.
What Chocolate is Best for Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies?
- This recipe calls for both regular semi-sweet chocolate chips and chocolate baking wafers.
- I used the Guittard brand of semisweet chocolate wafers. You can find these at larger supermarkets, specialty kitchen stores, or online.
- 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.
- I’ve also enjoyed using Guittard Super Cookie Chips for this recipe.
- If you can’t find baking wafers/feves or super chips, feel free to use 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips instead.
- You can also use blocks of baking chocolate, chopped coarsely, if preferred.
- Feel free to use milk chocolate or dark chocolate instead if preferred – just note that this will alter the final cookie’s sweetness levels. Learn more about Chocolate in Baking here.
- Some readers have felt this recipe uses too much chocolate. There’s no such thing in my book, but feel free to scale back the amount slightly. Note that scaling back too much may result in thinner cookies.
Topping Cookies with Flaky 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.
Tips for Perfect Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:
- Measure correctly: Always use a digital kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients, especially flour. Incorrectly measured flour can lead to cookies that are tough, crumbly, dry, too thick, or just blah.
- Correct temperature: 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.
- The baking pan: Use a quality light-colored baking pan for baking cookies. 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.
- Leavening agents: Make sure your baking soda and baking powder are fresh and active to ensure your cookies spread and rise perfectly. Learn more about these two leaveners and how to test for freshness in my Baking Soda vs Baking Powder article here.
- Don’t overbake: Bake these cookies just until the edges are set and golden brown. The middles may still look a little ‘wet’ – that’s okay! The pan’s residual heat will continue to cook them through to perfection.
- Chill the dough: Don’t skip the chill period!! More on that just below.
Chilling the Cookie 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 cookies improve as the dough chills. The flour is able to absorb the liquid in the dough, for thicker cookies, and the flavors intensify.
If you don’t want to wait for your cookies, feel free to bake off a few after chilling for at least two hours, just to satisfy the craving, and bake the rest after 24 hours!
Freezing does not work the same as chilling, so there are no shortcuts here. A minimum of 24 hours (and up to 72 hours) in the fridge is required to develop the flavor and texture fully. Learn more about how and why to chill cookie dough in this article here.
What Size to Make Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I’ve found these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are best made as big cookies, using a large 3-Tablespoon cookie scoop. This size 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 medium 1.5-Tablespoon cookie scoop and reduce the baking time to about 10 minutes. Note that the texture will be affected with a smaller scoop of dough.
Portioning the Cookie Dough Before or After Chilling?
Both work; it depends on which option works best for you!
If my fridge space is more limited, I’ll refrigerate the entire mass of dough because it takes up less room and is more easily stacked with other containers in the fridge. Sometimes I’m in a rush when making the dough and don’t have time to portion before chilling.
However, refrigerating the entire mass means you need to allow plenty of time for the dough to come to room temperature before portioning. Do not scoop cold dough, you will break your scoop. For this reason, the easiest option is to scoop, then chill.
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.
Can I Freeze Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?
Yes – but make sure you chill the dough for 24-72 hours before freezing. Learn why chilling the cookie dough first is important 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 freezer bag and freeze for up to 6 weeks. This way, you can bake off small batches of fresh cookies whenever you like! Check out my full post on how to freeze cookie dough and bake from frozen here.
More Cookie Recipes You’ll Love:
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies (one of my most popular recipes!)
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Marbled Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Brown Butter Dulce de Leche Cookie Cups
- Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
See ALL of my cookie recipes + cookie Baking Science tips here!
Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Ingredients
- 2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) 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 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 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)*
Instructions
- 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.
Recipe Notes
The Ultimate Cookie Handbook
Learn the sweet SCIENCE of cookie baking in a fun, visual way to customize your own recipes frustration-free. Plus, my best 50+ homemade cookies!
This post was originally published in 2015 and recently updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
I baked the cookies for 15 minutes because the top was still raw. The bottoms over cooked, so I flipped them over, to cook all the way through. I’ve never had to do this before. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Shonna! It sounds like you had a couple other issues in making these cookies from your previous comments, but here are a few additional things to consider:
– What type of pan are you baking on? Different materials of pans conduct heat differently, so some will cook the bottom quickly, and not leave the cookie appropriate time to spread out gently and evenly, resulting in over-baked bottoms and underdone tops. Tessa discusses and shows the differences between a variety of baking pans in this article here.
– Are you baking on the middle rack? Assuming your oven is conventional (not convection), baking too close to the bottom could cause your cookies to overbake on the bottom very quickly. Baking with the rack positioned to the middle position is typically recommended for baking cookies, cakes, muffins, etc for the most even distribution of heat.
– Your oven also might be running a little hot. Do you have an oven thermometer to check that? Check out Tessa’s article here about ovens, full of tips!!
I hope something here helps! Happy baking 🙂
hello and thx for the recipe, I made a huge mistake, I put 110 grams of all-purpose flour in the dough instead of 190 AP flour and forgot 80 grams of it. I was in a hurry to make this recipe. the dough is in the fridge now for 24 hours chilling can I remove it from the refrigerator and add the 80 grams then chill the dough and wait for another 24 hours and then bake them? What is your advice to me about this problem? or do i just restart all the recipe from the beginning? thanks in advance
Hi Wael! Oh no, I’m sorry to hear about your flour mishap. Unfortunately, adding the flour now will likely overwork the dough, which can cause tough cookies. You can try baking the cookies as they are, knowing that they will spread more than they should thanks to their lack of flour, so space them apart much further than usual. Once baked, try using a round cookie or biscuit cutter that’s slightly larger than the size of your cookies, and swirl the cookie cutter in circles around the cookie edges a few times. Make sure you do this straight out of the oven (before they have a chance to set up). This will pull the edges of the cookies back in and sort of force them to be thicker. This is a trick I learned from Tessa, which makes cookies perfectly round! Here’s a link to the reel on our Instagram, where we shared this fun cookie hack a few months ago. Alternatively, you can place the cookie dough in a metal 9×13-inch baking pan and press the dough into the pan with your fingers, and bake the cookie dough into cookie bars. This way, the structure of the cookies with some of the flour missing won’t matter quite so much, and they can’t overspread. They honestly still might not work out super well either way, but it’s worth a shot instead of wasting the dough! I hope this helps. let us know how it goes and good luck!
Hi Tessa! Love this cookie recipe!
I’m wondering if it is okay to double this recipe?
Hi Evelyn! So glad to hear that you enjoy these cookies! Yes, feel free to double the recipe. Enjoy 🙂
Incredible. Hard to scoop but worth the effort. This recipe is a keeper!!
Hi Lana! We’re so glad to hear that you enjoyed these cookies! Feel free to change up the method a little next time: make and shape the cookie dough, then set the pre-portioned cookie dough balls inside a freezer bag or airtight container, in a single layer, and refrigerate that way for 24-72 hours. This means you can bake straight from the fridge after the chill period, without battling the hard dough! The dough balls do tend to dry out more quickly than the entire mass of dough, so be careful that your freezer bag or airtight container is well-sealed. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
Is it normal for the dough to be kind of runny? It doesn’t have the same texture as regular cookie dough. I’m putting it in the refrigerator tonight, hoping part of that process is to firm it up. Thanks for your help!
Hi Maureen! Because the butter is melted and browned, instead of creamed, this method will produce dough that’s a little softer and looser than usual cookie doughs. This is part of the reason for the mandatory 24-72 hour chill, as Tessa mentions in the pink tip box (above the recipe). During this chill time, the butter re-solidifies, and the moisture in the eggs hydrates the flour, so the end result is a thick, delicious cookie. I hope that makes sense, and I hope you enjoy these cookies!
Thank you so much! I baked one last night and it didn’t turn out great. Going to give it another try after being refrigerated longer. The dough taste amazing so I’m not giving up.
Ummm mine wasn’t runny. Now I’m scared iM doing it wrong lol. Mine is chilling right now. How long Is that process? They look delish. I also probably got the wrong wafers. Mine say melting wafers
Hi Shonna! This dough should be on the softer side, but not runny and not super firm. Melting wafers are also not going to work super well, as they are designed to melt quickly, so they’ll likely melt into a big puddle in the oven! Aside from the chocolate, it sounds like you may have accidentally added too much flour. If you’re measuring by volume (using cups), this can happen super easily. Learn more about measuring accurately here. As for the chilling process, as Tessa outlines in the recipe + the pink tip box (above the recipe), these cookies need to be chilled for at the very minimum 24 hours, or up to 72 hours, before baking. I hope this helps, and I hope your cookies were still tasty!
Best cookie recipe ever! I do have a question, a lot of times when I make this my sugar doesn’t get completely dissolved and my cookie has that grainy texture. Anyone got tips for this? Thanks
Hi Lydia! So glad to hear that you’re enjoying this delicious cookie recipe! Butter can have difficulty dissolving entirely in brown butter because sugar needs liquid to dissolve. During the process of browning the butter, we’re driving off the water that butter contains, so the butter has less water in which to melt. That’s where the refrigeration period comes in: during this 24-72 hours in the fridge, the water in the egg whites can help break down the sugar granules further (among many other magical things). If this is still leaving you with cookies a bit grainy for your preference, you can experiment with this: when adding the butter to the hot browned butter, you can try tossing an ice cube in, to replace a little of the lost water and assist in melting your sugar a bit more, before proceeding with the recipe as written. We haven’t tried this to see how it will work in this recipe, so this would be purely experimental – but it may help with your textural issue. If you’re interested, Tessa has a fantastic online course you can take to learn more about the deep-dive ingredients make in baking. Check out The Magic of Baking Course here! I hope this helps! Happy baking 🙂
Hi! Have you tried making the dough as usual and then adding white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts rather than regular chocolate? I wonder if swapping these would affect the cookies
Hi Manahil! Feel free to swap the chocolate chips with the same amount of any other mix-ins you like! Happy baking 🙂
I bought your book and started with the control cookie. Then I moved on to this one. Those semi-sweet chocolate wafers are impossible to get here in central Mississippi. I found one premium market that said they had the Guittard ones but, when I went there, they only had the bitter-sweet variety. Amazon does not have them. Guittard will ship them direct but, this time of the year, will only ship them overnight. $9 for the wafers and $50-something for shipping. I’m making this one with all chips (no wafers) today to bake on Labor Day.
Looking forward to scoring some Guittard semi-sweet wafers soon but it may have to wait for cooler weather or my local Fresh Approach to get their act together.
Hi Frank! Feel free to use a high-quality chocolate block and chop it coarsely, in place of the wafers – the cookies will still taste incredible! Happy baking 🙂
I complained to Fresh Approach corporate HQ about the local situation. I was shocked when they called me back. She said the problem at the local store was due to an administrative screw-up. She said they had ordered them and would call me when they were back in stock. Yesterday, I got that call. Now a die-hard Fresh Approach fan again!
I’m making the browned butter chocolate chip holy trinity (wafers toffee and butterscotch) today for a luncheon on Thursday. There is a disparity in the three recipes that I do not understand. The wafer recipe in your book calls for ¼ t baking powder. The toffee and butterscotch recipes on your site call for a whole teaspoon. Otherwise, they are pretty similar. Is this intentional?
Hi Frank! Glad to hear that you got your hands on the chocolate! As for the differences between cookies, it’s all due to slight differences in the recipes and slightly different desired outcomes. If you’re interested, Tessa has a fantastic online course you can take to learn more about the deep-dive differences little tweaks like this make in baking. Check out The Magic of Baking Course here! Happy baking 🙂
These turned out perfect! I ended up putting the dough in the freezer for 1 hour and then baking them, instead of refrigerating for 24 hours. The cookies still turned out great. My new go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe!
These turned out delicious! It was a little too much chocolate for me but everyone else loved them. I followed the directions exactly the first time. The next time I only used 10 ounces of chocolate chips and I rolled the dough into balls before I refrigerated it. It made it much easier when baking. They were still amazing!
Omg these came out perfect!!! This will be my new go-to cookie recipe.
So happy to hear that, Ella!
Hi Tessa! Love all your recipes. Bought your cookie kit and I’m loving the cookie scoops! Getting ready to make your browned butter chocolate chip cookies. I don’t have baking wafers but do have Sees candy very large chips or Giradelli semi sweet baking bars which I could chopped. Would either of those work? Your science of baking blogs are amazing- have read them all – making me a better baker!! Thank you!
Barb Cattie
Hi Barb! So glad to hear that you’re loving Tessa’s recipes and Cookie Kit! I’ll be sure to pass your sweet message along to Tessa – she’ll be so happy to hear your kind words 🙂 Either of those chocolate options will work well, but if the See’s chips are milk chocolate, just keep in mind that will up the overall sweetness of the cookie, since milk chocolate is a little sweeter. Feel free to use a mix of the two types of chocolate, too! Be sure to read through all the tips and info Tessa has packed into the pink tip box (above the recipe) before starting. Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try! Happy baking 🙂