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!
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
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!)
Email This Recipe
Enter your email, and we’ll send it to your inbox.
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 think there may be too much flour or not enough fixings as the cookies came out too puffy based on the instructions provided. Not flat and chewy.
Hi Effie! The most common issue that results in puffy cookies is using too much flour. Do you use a digital scale to measure your ingredients? If you don’t have one, you can also use the Spoon and Level Method, as described in our article on How to Measure Flour here. Hopefully that helps for your next batch. I’d love to hear what you think when you give this recipe another try, it’s one of my absolute favorites! 🙂
these cookies are amazing! NOTE IF YOU ARE GLUTEN INTOLERANT: i subbed both flours in this recipe for bob’s red mill gluten free 1-1 flour, and they still turned out great! no evidence that they are gluten free in the taste, texture, or appearance. i will say that the dough is indeed VERY hard to mix and scoop, so prepare your wrists and consider recruiting help lol. i made these for a crowd and everyone who tried one loved them (they all started out with a half but then came back for the other half haha). i feel like chocolate chip cookies can only get SO good, and these are probably the best ones that you could possibly make. thanks sincerely for the recipe!!!
ive already made this recipe and this is going to be something i keep this in my arsenal for an eternity! its the perfect cookie to me. i was wondering though, i planned my schedule poorly to prep these and i will only have at most 16 hours to let these chill. will that be okay?
Hi Cierra! So glad to hear that you enjoy these cookies! While a minimum of 24 hours chill time is required for this recipe, your cookies should still be delicious after 16ish hours chilling. They may spread sliiiiightly more than they should, and the flavor might not be quite as deep/complex, but they’ll still be amazing. Enjoy!
Hii! I have made this recipe several times but my cookies always turn out flat and super thin. Any suggestions to making it a thicker cookie?
Hi Leslie! I’m sorry to hear your cookies keep spreading too much! Here are a few common reasons why this may be happening:
– Were the cookies chilled well before baking? These cookies must be chilled for 24-72 hours prior to baking. That can definitely help prevent spread while baking, as well as lending so much more depth of flavor and chewiness to the baked results.
– 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 to any recipe! Tessa also talks about how to measure properly in this article here.
– Is your leavening agent fresh? 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!
– If all of these boxes are checked, I would recommend trying a different brand of flour, and potentially even adding a couple additional tablespoons of flour. Adding too much flour can make cookies unpleasant to eat, but depending on your altitude and humidity levels, you may just need that little extra bit of flour (and potentially a different brand) to allow these cookies to stay thicker and chewier, rather than spreading so much.
– Some of the points in this article won’t apply to this recipe, since it uses browned butter, but check out Tessa’s article here on baking thick cookies – there’s a ton of great info in there!
I hope something here helped, Leslie! Good luck and happy baking 🙂
what kind of pan are you using? the double-walled ones make these cookies spread thin for me, but if i use a single walled sheet pan, there is less spread. it also works better for me to not use the convection setting in my oven.
Excellent as written! I made smaller 1 tbsp ones and they were just as good as the bigger cookies.
hi!
can these be made without toffee? I don’t like how it feels on my teeth
Hi Nikki! We haven’t tried that ourselves, but it should work just fine – but I would recommend adding about the same amount of additional chocolate chips or another similar mix-in, to keep the cookies the same texture. Let us know how it goes!
Hahahahaha…ummm…🤔😂
Fantastic!!!
I’m not sure if there is something I accidentally left out or I measured something wrong but the cookies tasted really bitter and we’re not a crowd pleaser. Thankfully I made another cookie to bring as well because no one liked them, including me! I’m going to have to try them again some other time to really see if it was me or the cookie. The only thing I omitted was the espresso powder but that was optional anyways.
Any ideas where I went wrong?
Hi Sara! I’m sorry to hear that these cookies did not turn out as they should. They should have a rich, complex flavor thanks to the nutty browned butter, toffee, and dark brown sugar – but they definitely should not be bitter. It’s always possible that something was accidentally mismeasured (it’s happened to us all!) and that would have thrown off the flavor and possibly even the texture. Adding too much baking powder/soda can cause bitterness, as can reducing the sugar. Also, be sure to keep a close watch when browning your butter, as it can go from nicely browned to burned very quickly. I hope you’ll try these cookies again – they really are fantastic! Happy baking!
How old was your flour? I discovered the hard way that all purpose flour goes rancid and will have a bitter taste to it so I always use flour I’ve had in the cupboard 6 months or less
So the taste is there but I feel like I did something wrong! Every time I do a recipe with browned butter the cookies don’t spread out, they stay thick and pretty close to the round ball I shaped them in! Is there something that I did that may have caused it like over mixing?
Hi Jaime! I’m sorry to hear that you have trouble with brown butter cookies. Overmixing will typically result in tough cookies, but it shouldn’t impact the cookies’ ability to spread. 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 (particularly flour) and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe – and is is a super common cause of cookies not spreading. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time. I hope this helps! Feel free to reach back out with any further questions!
I’m super excited to make these but I’m in Denver Colorado and worried about the high altitude messing them up! I’ve made ingredient adjustments to my cookies in the past based on the elevation and have turned out great (like decreasing the amount of sugar which you say to def not do, more liquid, more flour, etc). Do you have any specific recommendations for adjusting the recipe based on high altitude? Thanks!
Hi Ally! Unfortunately, no one at Team Handle the Heat has experience baking at high altitudes, but this King Arthur Baking resource has some great tips. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
super yummy! I may try dark chocolate next time to get an extra chocolaty flavor. I’m a little confused by the storage instructions for the dough. once you freeze them you leave them at air temperature for up to 6 weeks?
Hi Ashlie! Please don’t leave your cookie dough at room temperature! This will cause the dough to spoil. The instructions talk you through how the cookie dough needs to be chilled for 24-72 hours, and then it can be frozen up to 6 weeks inside an airtight container, or a freezer bag is fine too. Glad to hear that you enjoyed these! Happy baking 🙂
this recipe is a 4.5 for me. be warned that the toffee melts into the cookie, giving them a tough and chewy texture that sticks to your teeth. clearly that is what a lot of people like, since this recipe went viral. it just wasn’t for me. otherwise, the flavors of the cookie are well-balanced and delicious.
i used around 140 grams each of 60% and 70% dark couverture chocolate, and i made sure to use the bread flour as well. i also added about a cup of pecans into my recipe, but that is the only change i made. the cookies cane out gorgeous, to a professional level.
lastly, i have a tiny beef with this website. there is soooo much happening on the page, it crashes on me as i’m trying to read through all the important tips. it also crashed on me when i first attempted to write my review, so i had to start over. i totally get it that advertisements are what help blogs like this keep their legs, but perhaps you could have one or two less of them so there is less risk of crashing on someone in the middle of a recipe.