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.
My cookies are very thick, they never got flat and gooey like yours. What could cause this?
Hi Kelly! How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure ingredients, especially flour, and end up with cookies that are too thick, don’t spread and aren’t gooey. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
These have become my family’s new favorite cookie! I want to make the brown butter malted toffee cookie bars and have a question regarding the malted milk powder. Do you use the chocolate malted milk powder or the original malted milk powder( I assume is vanilla/white in color)
Hi Jeanine! We’re so glad to hear that your family enjoys these cookies so much! These cookies are a little different from the Brown Butter Malted Toffee Cookie Bars in Tessa’s Ultimate Cookie Handbook, but here is the link to the malted milk powder we typically use for those bars. We haven’t tried them with the chocolate version, but let us know if you do! Happy baking 🙂
So so amazing! I want to get flaky salt the next time I made them. My family was impatient so I cooked some after ten hours of chilling and am saving the rest of the batch to bake at the 72hr mark. I loved the article about the why behind chilling cookie dough.
Hello! I’ve gotten to the point where I have to keep a stash of these cookies in my freezer so that I can enjoy them on demand! I added walnuts and now I would like to add oats. Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are my favorite, BUT I love how your BBTCC cookie recipe is thick, chewy, crispy and sweet in all the right places! Do you have any suggestions how much oats to add to this recipe w/o drying out the dough? Should I substitute all-purpose flour for oat flour? I know that I can brown the butter for your oatmeal chocolate chip recipe, but I specifically want to add oats to this one : )
Hi Lex! We haven’t tried adding oats to these cookies, but as you mentioned, they are quite a drying ingredient, so it will definitely take some experimenting to nail! Take a look at some oatmeal cookie recipes such as this one, to get an idea of ratios, before trying it out for yourself. Let us know how it goes 🙂
Is there a certain process that you have to go through after freezing the cookie dough? Does it have to thaw or is the cooking time increased?
Hi Grace! Check out this article Tessa wrote on this exact topic. Happy baking! 🙂
Hi I followed your recipe perfectly (twice) and only got 21 1/2 cookies! I wonder why? I have the 3 tbsp cookie scoop and measure the ingredients. Any thoughts?
Hi Toni! Small discrepancies such as this can occur for a few reasons, like perhaps your 3-Tablespoon cookie scoop is a teeny bit larger than the one we used to test and develop this recipe – not all brands are exactly the same size. Or, perhaps you’re packing a little more dough into each scoop than we did. Either way, we hope you’re enjoying these cookies! Happy baking 🙂
Hi! I was hoping to brown the butter a day before making these. Is that possible to do? If so, should I refrigerate it after browning it and then bring it back to room temp before adding the rest of the ingredients or would it be okay left out overnight?
Thanks!
Hi Katie! We haven’t tried that, but it’s best to make the browned butter and continue with the rest of the recipe right away, because the sugars need to be added to the hot butter. If you need to make the butter the night before, I would recommend allowing it to cool, then place it in the fridge overnight, and when you’re ready to proceed with the rest of the recipe, gently reheat the butter until melted and hot, then add the sugars as instructed and continue with the rest of the recipe. Let us know how it goes if you give that variation a try! Happy baking 🙂
When I 8x or 16x this recipe, the cookies come out darker and also they deflate and become raw in the middle once cooled down. Is there something I should consider when multiplying everything by 8x?
Hi Rick! Perhaps everything (particularly the leavener) isn’t getting mixed in properly when multiplying by such a large amount. Deflating cookies is typically a leavening agent issue, so I’d recommend paying specific attention to ensuring it’s thoroughly and evenly distributed (along with everything else being evenly distributed, of course!) next time. I hope that helps 🙂 Happy baking!
I’ve made your recipes many times and these by far came out the worst. I followed all your directions exactly but my cookies did not rise at all. What do you think is the problem? Baking soda was old or something? So upset because these took so long to make!
Hi Kerry! I’m sorry to hear your cookies didn’t turn out as they should! Expired leavening agents could definitely be the issue here. If baking powder/soda sit around for a bit, they can lose their rising powder, which can result in flat cookies! Tessa talks about how to test for leavener freshness in this article here!
Another thing could be how well-chilled the cookies were before baking? These cookies need to be chilled in the fridge for at least 24 hours before baking, and this cannot be rushed in the freezer unfortunately. This gives the butter time to re-solidify, as well as allowing the moisture in the egg whites to hydrate the flour, yielding thicker cookies with much more depth of flavor and chewiness.
Also, are you weighing your ingredients? Weighing vs. measuring by volume can also have a huge impact on your baked goods, as it’s so easy to add too little or too much flour, sugar, etc to any recipe. Tessa also talks about how to measure properly in this article here.
I hope this helps, and if not, please feel free to reach out again and we can try to troubleshoot with you further! Happy baking 🙂
Best CC cookies I’ve ever made/had.
I’ve made these before and they were great. One issue was the toffee melted and made the edges too crunchy and was a bit difficult to swirl them with a round cookie cutter. I have another batch in the fridge waiting to be baked. Is there a way to not have toffee melt all along the edges? Also do the baked cookies freeze well?
Hi Rose! We have not experienced this issue, but it sounds like maybe your cookies are getting slightly overbaked. The cookie cutter trick should make them perfectly round easily when the cookies are slightly underbaked – which also prevents the toffee from over-hardening. Try shaving a minute or two off your bake time and see if that helps. We also have not tried freezing these cookies once baked, but freezing the dough and baking from frozen works perfectly – learn more about that here! Happy baking 🙂
I’ve made these a few times and they turn out amazing every time! By far the best chocolate chip cookie.
If wanting to make them within a less than 24 hr time frame, is there a suitable alternative to the 24 hour chill? Can the dough be put in the freezer for a few and then the fridge overnight to expedite the process?
Thank you!
Hi Lauren! We’re so happy to hear that you love these cookies! Unfortunately, there’s no way to expedite the process of the ‘marination’ period. Placing in the freezer just freezes the liquid in the dough, instead of allowing it to slowly work its magic in the fridge. Learn more about this in Tessa’s article here! Happy baking 🙂
Do you recommend making this by hand versus in a stand mixer?
Hi Angela! Yes, these cookies just need to be mixed by hand. Because the butter is browned first (and therefore melted), the creaming process most cookies need using a mixer isn’t necessary, and wouldn’t really work if you tried! Learn more about that here. I hope you enjoy these cookies – let us know what you think! 🙂