Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Possibly the most flavorful chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted. The combination of the nutty brown butter, the rich sweetness of the dark brown sugar, and the caramel-y toffee is INSANELY good.
Texture: These cookies are big, thick, chewy, ooey, and gooey. Seriously perfect.
Ease: More involved than your standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. There’s the browning of the butter and letting the dough chill for at least 24 hours.
Pros: Fantastic chocolate chip cookies that your family and friends will adore.
Cons: A little extra work involved, but I promise it’s completely worthwhile.
Would I make this again? Oh yes. I always keep a steady supply of these cookies in my freezer!
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These Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies are about to be the BEST cookies you’ve ever tried.
This Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies 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!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
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.
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 to these Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies 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
- To make these Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies extra delicious, we’re using a combination of granulated white sugar and 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.
- Whatever you do, don’t lower the sugar in this recipe. Sugar does SO much more than simply sweetening your baked goods. Learn more about sugar’s role in baking here.
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).
Why is There Espresso Powder in This Cookie Recipe?
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.
What Kind of Chocolate for Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies?
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.
Where to Find 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.
Can I Make Smaller Cookies?
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.
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!
Can I Freeze This Cookie Dough?
Yes! Freeze the portioned Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip 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. Click here for my full guide on how to freeze and bake frozen dough.
Tessa’s Favorite Tools for This Recipe:
- Large 3-tablespoon size cookie scoop for that bakery-style texture
- Or use a medium 1.5-tablespoon size cookie scoop and bake only for about 10-12 minutes instead
- Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Baker’s Half Sheet won our side-by-side comparison of the best baking pans
- 12″x16″ non-stick parchment paper for the best bake and easiest cleanup!
- The Ultimate Cookie Handbook: Your Guide to Baking Perfect Cookies Every Time by Tessa Arias (me!)
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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!
- 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 24 hours but no more than 72 hours.
- Let dough sit at room temperature just until it is soft enough to scoop, about 1 hour.
- 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.
I’m from Brazil =)
Follow you on Instagram and I make a lot of your recipes! Sometimes I need to adapt some ingredients haha. It’s great, this cookies, I love It! Just eat three! Thank you for your dedication in everything!
How many grams is 2 1/2 cup flour?
Hi Vanessa! The gram measurements are written in the recipe. You need 1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour and 1 cup (127 grams) bread flour. If you can’t find bread flour, you will use 317 grams of all-purpose flour instead – but the cookies won’t be quite as thick and chewy. Please check out all Tessa’s tips and info, in the pink tip box above the recipe. Happy baking!
I used a small scoop and used light brown sugar. They were easy to make and very good. Next time I will use the dark brown sugar and use my larger scoop.
I am so so so excited to make these for my me and my housemates! Do you recommend a certain brand of butter? I’m thinking of using Kerrygold but I know certain butters can yield different results, just want to see if you have a recommendation 🙂
Hi Sofia! Kerrygold is a European-style butter, containing a higher percentage of butterfat and a lower percentage of water content – making it utterly delicious to spread on bread, but this can sometimes complicate American-style baked good recipes. Tessa’s favorite butter for baking is Challenge Unsalted Butter, which is available widely in some parts of the US, and in select stores elsewhere. Use this store locator to find where to buy it near you! Otherwise, Trader Joe’s unsalted butter is a good choice too! I hope this helps. Let us know what you think if you give these cookies a try 🙂
These are so good! My friends loved them and I like to keep a stock pile in my freezer. Your recipes are so good that now I only go to your site.
Bit of a disaster this morning when I woke up and realised I forgot to add the granulated sugar to my cookie dough! Decided to bake (~11mins at 180 degC) anyway after a 12hr chill in the fridge and they turned out pretty good still thankfully!
This was my first time making them so I don’t have anything to compare to but they rose a bit with perhaps a slight cakey texture but still maintained a chew and a good sweetness even without the extra sugar (My boyfriend even said the dough tasted very ‘adult’ yesterday but I still didn’t catch the reduced sugar). I kept off the salt sprinkle but I think there is enough salt in the dough itself for balance here.
I’m in the UK so used a 70% cocoa chocolate and chopped up Daim bars for the toffee element and I think maybe a milkier chocolate would’ve made a better balanced cookie in this case but I will absolutely be making these again with the right sugar content to see!
Would love to hear your thoughts on the science of leaving out the granulated sugar (accidental or no!). I did all the remaining steps correctly and used the correct ingredients otherwise but obviously being in Europe have a higher butter fat content so not sure if that had a part to play in these turning out OK still.
Cheers!
Hi Jeff! I’m glad these cookies were still tasty, even without the sugar! Sugar brings so much to a cookie beyond just sweetness – it helps with moisture, spread and more. Tessa has a whole article dedicated to this – check it out here. I hope you give these cookies a try with the sugar sometime, to see how they compare. Happy baking!
Can I use instant coffee instead of instant espresso?!
Hi Lisa! You can, but you won’t get the same intensity of coffee flavor. You can just skip the espresso powder if you don’t have it 🙂
my daughter and I made these last night, followed directions exactly, had a scale to weight the ingredients. We both agree its the best chocolate chip cookie we have ever had AND have ever made. Fantastic. We will pass this recipe down in our family, PERFECT
I’m about to bake these tomorrow and am super excited! Can I grind regular espresso really fine with an espresso bean grinder to mimic espresso powder?
Hi Kelsey! That should work just fine 🙂 Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try!
The flavor is great, but so far I’ve made two cookie recipes on here an they look nothing like the photos. I measure everything with a scale, and make cookie often. With these they turned out greasy, flat, and pretty dark. Since i measured everything correctly and my ingredients were just purchased; i’m not really sure what went wrong. I’ll keep trying the recipes.
Hi Arielle! Hmm, that’s super strange – especially since your ingredients were measured using a scale for accuracy! It’s hard to say exactly what’s going wrong without baking alongside you, but here are a few things that may be going wrong:
– Are you using American-style (80% butterfat) butter? Or possibly using a European-style butter? European-style butters contain a higher butterfat content, so recipes may require a little tinkering with in order to use that type of butter with perfect results.
– What type of baking pan are you baking on? Not all baking pans were created equal! Check out Tessa’s article on this.
– Is your oven perhaps running a little hot? Most ovens are lying to us about the temperature they say they’re at – my personal oven runs about 10°F too hot. Tessa recommends using an oven thermometer to verify that your oven is actually at the correct temperature. Read more about that here.
– Are you chilling your cookie doughs before baking? This is a crucial step in these cookies in particular, but we find it helps immensely with flavor and texture in most cookie recipes! Learn more in Tessa’s post here!
I hope something here helps, Arielle. Feel free to reach back out to us with any further questions – we’re always happy to help 🙂
this recipe is a crowd pleasure. love it! I have a question can I use regular expresso powder or do have to use instant expresso powder?
Hi Daisy! Any espresso powder is fine 🙂 Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try!
I have know idea what I did wrong but they came out like “cake” every ingredient was measured on scale.I will definitely try doing them again .
Hi Stella! I’m sorry to hear that these cookies didn’t turn out as they should! Using a scale, as you mentioned, should easily prevent any ingredients from being over-measured, so this shouldn’t be the reason your cookies were cakey. Were any ingredients accidentally missed, or did you make any substitutions? Did you refrigerate the cookies for 24-72 hours? This really helps immensely with the delicious flavor and the consistency of the cookies, too. Also, how old are your leavening agents? If your baking soda and baking powder are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can not rise properly, fall after baking, and much more – leading to less-than-perfect results and strange textures. Tessa talks about the science behind leavening agents, and how to test for leavener freshness, in this article here! I hope something here helps, Stella, and I hope things go perfectly for you next time you make these! Happy baking 🙂