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Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Possibly the most flavorful chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted.
Texture: Big, thick, chewy, slightly gooey, with perfectly sticky bits of toffee.
Ease: This is a higher effort recipe. Perfect for a weekend bake or special occasion, or when you truly need to impress.
Why you’ll love this recipe: I’ve been told by hundreds of people this recipe has ruined all other chocolate chip cookies for them…
These Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies are about to be the BEST cookies you’ve ever tried.
This recipe has gone completely viral. It’s been featured on Good Morning America, and TikTok videos of people making this recipe have gotten millions of views.
I originally published this recipe in 2014 but just had to update it with recipe improvements and new photos. These cookies deserved it!
In fact, my recipe photographer Ashley, who shot all 50 recipes in my cookie cookbook, said this may just be my BEST COOKIE RECIPE yet. People have been known to fight over these cookies. Yes, they’re that good.
These are one of the most flavorful chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted, and the texture is absolutely perfect. You NEED to try this recipe. If your friends and family are anything like mine, they plead and beg you to make it again and again.
Yes, this recipe is a little extra work. But the best things in life usually are.
You may even want to make a double batch so you have plenty of dough to freeze when the craving hits. Trust me… it WILL hit!
Seriously THE BEST cookie I’ve ever made!! The homemade toffee chips are a game changer!
How to Brown Butter:
- Use a stainless steel sauté pan for best results.
- Nonstick prevents the butter from browning completely and prevents you from being able to visually see how browned it’s getting. Same with the dark color of cast iron.
- Something with a wider surface area, like a sauté pan over a saucepan, encourages browning more quickly.
- Don’t step away from butter that’s browning after it’s melted. It can go from browned to burnt quickly.
- At the same time, don’t be afraid of letting that color develop. It should become a rich and fragrant amber.
- Scrape all the brown bits into the mixing bowl – that’s where the flavor lives!
- I highly recommend using unsalted butter – learn why here.
- Learn all my tips and tricks for browning butter in my How to Brown Butter article here.
Ingredients Notes
Do I Really Need to Use Bread Flour?
You don’t absolutely have to use bread flour, but it adds a ton of chewy texture that’s worth the extra trip to the store.
If you don’t have bread flour, then use a total of 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour in the recipe. Make sure to weigh your flour accurately. If you add too much flour, your cookies may end up dry, dense, or crumbly cookies that barely spread.
Granulated Sugar + Dark Brown Sugar
This combination brings sweetness, a fantastic texture, and a butterscotch flavor that’s so rich and delicious. The extra molasses in the dark brown sugar draws in more moisture, making the cookies thicker, softer, and chewier. You can use light brown sugar instead, but you may lose some of the additional flavor.
Eggs + an Extra Yolk
Eggs are essential to forming a beautifully pliable dough and cookies that stay soft for days – and we’re adding an extra yolk for extra richness and added chewiness. Eggs should be at room temperature when beginning your dough, but separate the one yolk from its white while cold for best results (yolks are more fragile and tend to break more easily when warmer).
I really like the way the bitter espresso plays off the sweetness of the toffee and the nuttiness of the browned butter. It’s totally optional, so if you don’t have it or don’t want to use it, feel free to simply omit it.
Chocolate
I like to use semi-sweet Ghirardelli baking bars and chop them up coarsely for these Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. Feel free to use chocolate chips, but note that you won’t have the same delicious marbled result you get from chopping your own chocolate.
Toffee Bits
You can find Heath brand toffee chips at many grocery stores, typically located with chocolate chips in the baking aisle.
If you can’t find them, I have a super easy recipe to DIY Homemade Toffee Bits which I used for these cookies here. It takes just 15 minutes and they taste SO much better than store-bought!
Do I Really Have to Chill the Cookie Dough?
I know, it’s annoying, but I promise you it’s SO worth it, especially for this recipe which uses melted browned butter. Both the taste and texture of the cookie improve during this time. Think of it as a marinating time where everything just gets better and better!!
Freezing does not work the same as chilling, so there are no shortcuts here. Learn more about chilling cookie dough in this article here.
Portioning the Cookie Dough Before vs. After Chilling
- Refrigerate the dough as a whole if you don’t have space in your fridge for scoops. Let the dough come completely to room temperature before scooping, which may take a couple hours.
- Refrigerate pre-scooped dough if you’ve got the space, and can commit to keeping the scoops well sealed in an airtight container so they won’t dry out.
- Simply bake the pre-portioned scoops straight from the fridge after the 24-72 hour chill time!
Freezing Instructions
Freeze the portioned cookie dough balls after letting the dough marinate in the fridge for at least 24 hours. Place dough balls on a baking sheet and freeze until solid. Remove frozen balls of dough to an airtight container and store for up to 6 weeks.
To bake from frozen, drop the temperature to 325°F and add about 3 minutes to the baking time. Click here for my full guide on how to freeze and bake frozen dough.
FAQs
Yes, though I much prefer the crisp edges, chewy texture, and soft center 3-tablespoon-sized Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. If you want to bake smaller cookies, scoop into 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized balls and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
No! I’ve taken the water loss that naturally occurs from browning butter into account when I designed this recipe.
Yes. The cookie will spread out too much if baked immediately after mixing the dough. I’ve gotten away with chilling for as little as 2 hours when I’ve been impatient. But longer chilling times really will improve the flavor and texture. You can always bake a few off the day you make the dough, and bake off the rest later!
You can, but you’ll be losing some of that magical chewy texture. If using all AP-flour, use 2 cups (254g) total.
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Ingredients
- 2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter
- 1/2 (100 grams) cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup (200 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
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder, optional
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 10 ounces (283 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 1 cup
homemade toffee bits , or Heath brand - Flaky sea salt, for finishing
Instructions
- In a medium stainless steel sauté pan 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 becomes quieter, continue to swirl the pan or stir until the butter develops a nutty aroma and brown bits start to form at the bottom. Once the bits are amber in color, remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Be sure to keep the brown bits at the bottom of the pan as well, they hold so much flavor!
- Note: You do NOT need to measure the butter after browning, I've engineered this recipe to account for the average water loss.
- Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar to the hot butter, stirring to combine. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and espresso powder.
- To the cooled butter mixture, whisk in the eggs, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Gradually stir in the flour mixture with a rubber spatula. Stir in the chocolate chunks and toffee bits.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably 24 hours, but no more than 72 hours. You can chill the scooped dough so long as it's well sealed to avoid drying out. If you chill the entire mass of dough, let it come to room temperature so it's soft enough to scoop.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a large cookie scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets. Dough may be slightly challenging to scoop.
- At this point, you can portion the dough, place it on a baking sheet, and freeze just until solid. Remove frozen balls of dough to an airtight container and store for up to 6 weeks.
- Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and immediately use a round cookie or biscuit cutter slightly larger than each cookie to gently reshape them into perfectly round, thicker cookies.
- Sprinkle flaky sea salt on top of the cookies, if desired. Let cookies cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
More Recipes You’ll Love:
- Toffee Brownies
- Hot Cocoa Cookies
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Brown Butter Dulce de Leche Cookie Cups
- Peanut Butter Toffee Chocolate Chunk Bars
- Bourbon Rye Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies
- Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Visit my full Cookie Recipes index for more recipes, tips, and insights into the science of cookie baking!
This post was originally published in 2014 and updated with recipe improvements, more tips, and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Just made my third batch of these! Everyone that has tried these cookies RAVES about how delicious they are. Thanks for the tips and tricks your provide throughout the recipe. It was clearly written and easy to follow.
Can these be made even larger or will they spread too much?
This is one perfect cookie. I’ve chilled the dough for about 4 hours and still they turned out amazing. Rich flavour, caramel aroma, wonderful texture. I’ll definitely keep a supply of them in my freezer.
Made the cookie dough during the week to bring up to Lake Tahoe for a snow trip this weekend and everyone loved it! Amazing flavor and warmed us up with a glass of milk! Not to mention the whole house smelled heavenly! I used a mix of semisweet and milk chocolate chips, perfect combination!
How wonderful, Sabrina! Thanks for sharing xo
I was wondering if I could put the fresh made cookie dough in balls and just freeze until i use them or do they have to set in fridge first
Hi there,
Obsessed with your blog! Do you sift your flour for cookies or do you find that it makes a difference?
Thanks!
Nope, I don’t find it’s worth the hassle!
when browning butter, do u use those brown bits that are formed during cooking? I have always strained those out but that does loose a lot of butter. Please help me on this. BTW, you are causing me to loose a lot of time during the day cause all I want to do is read everything you write, often more than once, and I’m not getting the laundry, dusting, and vacuuming done! lol. jk. Then the rest of the day, I’m baking according to your tips and recipes! And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Haha!! Too funny, Patricia. Yes, using everything from the browned butter. Those bits are where all of the wonderful flavor is 🙂
Hi, can you help me with substitution from dark and white sugar to raw honey only. Thank you.
Hi Lana, unfortunately that won’t work. This recipe is best made as written!
Need oC the F word disappeared in the 70’s which was last century. Sticks and cups I can live with.
Celsius or Centigrade is modern please use alongside the vintage F word.
Thanks.
The other thing that is modern is a calculator or even a Google to convert C to F. Easy. Don’t be mean to someone trying to bring joy to our tummies.
How about we don’t tell someone what to do in THEIR website?
This is my first time visiting your site, and I love it! I have a question for you though, do you have any chocolate chip cookie recipes that can help me use up my bag of Rolos?
Yes! This is the perfect recipe for you: https://handletheheat.com/butterscotch-browned-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Delicious. I just made these (but only had all purpose flour), the chai tea sugar cookies, and your oatmeal cookie (I love raisins so used that instead of chocolate). Every single recipe turned out beautifully. Thank you for posting these recipes.
Where do you find bread flour? All I have seen are “mixes” which is bread flour already mixed with baking soda/powder