"Best" Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from Modern Honey

Best Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough December15, 2024 , modified slightly from Modern Honey

1 cup butter, melted and browned

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup Heath toffee bits, optional

1. Place butter in a large, deep, heavy pot or skillet. Melt over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until completely melted, foaming and browned bits appear on the bottom, 5-7 minutes. Pour butter into your mixing bowl and let cool to room temperature. Cover and place in refrigerator until solidified, at least an hour. Remove from refrigerator and let come to room temperature, 5-10 minutes.
2. Beat butter for 30 seconds and scrape the browned bits at the bottom to incorporate with rest of butter. Add brown sugar and granulated sugar; cream for 4-5 minutes, scraping bottom and sides of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
3. Add eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
4. Add flour, baking soda and salt, mixing on low speed just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips and toffee bits, if using, mixing until evenly disbursed.
5. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls; cover and chill for 24 hours. Freeze or bake after 24 hours.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 385 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space chilled dough balls. Bake 9-10 minutes or until edges are light golden brown and middles no longer look raw. Remove from heat and let rest on baking sheets for 2-3 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Although I haven't been trying many new recipes lately, I did sneak this one in from Modern Honey. Beyond holiday-themed cookies for my holiday baking gifts, I almost always include chocolate chip cookies as well since they're a universal favorite among my gift recipients. 

Browned butter provides an extra richness to cookies and this calls for browning the butter, letting it cool to solid state then mixing it into the dough. The result is cookies with crisp edges, an extra richness to the caramelized flavor and chewy moistness in the middle. In other words: damn good.

They puffed up during baking then they did flatten out more than I wanted once they came out of the oven. I did the swirling trick to neaten up the edges and make them more uniformly round. That also led to the crinkles at the edges which I didn't mind. But I would've like them to be thicker. But in any case, they did well on flavor and texture. I also added a cup of toffee bits for some crunch and sweetness but you can leave them out if you prefer.

Crave Cookies Review #5 - Caramel Turtle

Crave Cookies Review #5: Caramel Turtle - visited December 11, 2024

Caramel Turtle

I think I've given up trying to get my Crave reviews up the same week the cookies I've tried are still available. The new flavors drop every Friday but I usually can't get to Crave until either a few days after that or a day or two before another new set of flavors drop. So I'm going to be perpetually behind. 

I didn't have time to capture what last week's particular flavors were but here's a picture of them. The only one I was really interested in was the Caramel Turtle so that's what I got.

As you can see, it's pretty straightforward: brown sugar cookie stuffed with caramel, studded with candied pecans and covered in melty milk chocolate.

If your blood sugar spiked just reading that description, imagine actually biting into this. It's like a superior and nutty Twix in cookie form. But infinitely better than a Twix.

I like Crave's base vanilla or brown sugar cookies anyway. Then you stuff it with excellent chewy, flowy caramel and cover it in milk chocolate? Um, yeah. I'm not generally a fan of nuts in my cookies but since this was such a sturdy, thick cookie, it worked fairly well, especially since the pecans were candied and added that sweet crunch. This cookie was worth the calories and double workouts, I assure you.

Stamped Cookies #42 - Gingerbread Stamped Cookies from Your Baking Bestie

Stamped Cookies #42 - Gingerbread Stamped Cookies, made dough December 6, 2024 from Your Baking Bestie

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup (224 grams) dark brown sugar

1/2 cup (112 grams) granulated sugar

1/3 cup (93 grams) molasses

2 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

5 cups (700 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until well combined and no butter lumps remain, 1-2 minutes. Add molasses and beat to combine.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract, mixing to combine.
3. In a small bowl, combine together ginger, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. Add to creamed mixture and mix to combine.
4. Add flour in 1 cup additions, mixing on low speed after each addition until just combined.
5. In a small bowl, pour granulated sugar. Roll dough into balls and flatten slightly. Lightly coat with the granulated sugar before stamping. You can bake without chilling or, if you prefer, chill for 30 minutes to overnight first.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space stamped cookies. Bake 8-10 minutes or until middle no longer look raw or shiny. Remove from heat and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Gingerbread seems to be the flavor of the season, or at least one of them. I'm not a big gingerbread fan. Gingerbread houses are pretty but I don't know many people who actually eat them because the gingerbread has to be so hard to hold up a structure and decorations. Plus all the spices are a bit much.

So I was glad to find this recipe that has just the right amount of "gingerbread flavor" i.e. molasses and spices. In fact, the only spices are cinnamon and ground ginger which suits me fine.

The dough was easy to work with. I do suggest weighing at least the flour and brown sugar if you have a kitchen scale, for greater accuracy. Feel the dough before adding all of that last cup of flour. You don't want it sticky but you don't want it dry and crumbly either. I also modified the directions for stamping as I prefer to roll individual balls of dough in granulated sugar rather than flour to prevent the cookie stamp from sticking.

I underbaked the test cookie slightly as you can tell from the darker middle. But it suited me just fine as the texture was dense and moist. The edges were a little bit crisp, even slightly underbaked. This is a great cookie for people who don't like strong molasses or ginger flavors in their gingerbread. Plus the impressions held up beautifully in baking.

Crumbl Cookies Review #83 - Eggnog Tres Leches Cake

Crumbl Cookies Review #83 - Eggnog Tres Leches Cake, visited December 9, 2024

I actually have been baking and have a new recipe to post shortly but I want to get this post up while the Eggnog Tres Leches Cake is still available at Crumbl (until tomorrow, Saturday) this week.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Crumbl does a lot of these "product extensions" by offering a different flavor on an existing product that's done well. There's the original Tres Leches Cake then they did a Cookie Butter Tres Leches Cake and now there's an eggnog version.

Eggnog Tres Leches Cake

I'm not a big fan of eggnog. The flavor is okay but it's the texture of somewhere between heavy cream and whole milk that makes me shudder. Not my thing. But since I wasn't drinking straight eggnog and it was only used to soak into the cake itself, I thought this might be a safe bet.

And it was. Crumbl has nailed the tres leches cake pretty well. I still prefer the original version over the other two but this one was fine. It didn't have a strong eggnog flavor so true eggnog lovers might be a little disappointed. But for those of us who prefer "eggnog-lite", this is a decent rendition. The cake was perfectly soaked in the eggnog without being soppy and it definitely wasn't dry. If this was the original version, I could (and have) eaten the whole thing over the course of a day. This one? I ate maybe 20% of it and was fine putting the rest in the freezer for later. This one had a 99-cent upcharge over the single cookie price at my Crumbl. I'm glad I tried it but I wouldn't get multiples like I probably would have with the original Tres Leches.

Crave Cookies Review #4: Better Than XXX, Cookie Monster, Biscoff Gingerbread and Red Velvet Oreo

Crave Cookies Review #4: Better Than XXX, The Cookie Monster, Biscoff Gingerbread and Red Velvet Oreo - visited December 4, 2024

I usually try to post a review of cookie shop cookies the week they're available in an attempt to provide more info for anyone considering a purchase. Alas, I think I'm only successful in posting same week less than half the time. In this case, I just can't eat enough or write it up in time to make the post.

Flavors the week of November 29 - December 5, 2024:

Better Than XXX: chocolate cake dough mingling with decadent Ghirardelli caramel, topped with fresh whipped cream and a sprinkle of crushed toffee

The Cookie Monster: blue vanilla dough loaded with chocolate chips and cookie dough bites with a gooey edible chocolate cookie dough center

Chai Eggnog: chai-spiced sugar dough with eggnog icing

Biscoff Gingerbread: spiced gingerbread dough with Biscoff filling, Christmas nonpareil sprinkles

December 2024 monthly flavor:

Red Velvet Oreo: red velvet dough loaded with crushed Oreos and white chocolate and a luxurious white chocolate drizzle

Better Than XXX

I normally only get 1 or 2 flavors max but decided to splurge and get a 4-pack this time. 

The Better Than XXX cookie had 3 points in its favor and 1 counterpoint. First I enjoyed the chocolate cookie itself. Normally I'm a little leery as Crumbl has taught me their chocolate cookies are mostly too rich for my liking. But this one from Crave had just the right level of chocolatey-ness and great texture, dense and fudgy. You're not on chocolate overload with the first bite. Second, you can't go wrong with caramel on anything. Third, I liked the toffee crunch as well to provide a texture contrast.

The only thing I didn't like was - you guessed it - that whipped cream topping. I just can't get into whipped cream. I don't like the airy texture and it doesn't taste like anything. As I always say, it's air with calories. So I took a bite of the cookie as it was meant to be, scraped off the whipped cream, broke the cookie into pieces, wrapped each piece in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer. 

The Cookie Monster

I had reservations about the Cookie Monster. I mean, it's blue. Blue is neither appetizing or appealing. I get they dyed it blue to fit the Cookie Monster theme but ugh. I just don't like blue food. 

However, if you close your eyes and ignore the color, this cookie was fantastic. As in, it might be the best of the bunch for that week. Edges were crisp, flavor was brown sugar caramel-y goodness and it was thick and chewy-moist. I loved it.

I took a bite when it was still somewhat lukewarm so the chips were melty. Did I mention it was fantastic? Because it was. Thankfully, the cookie dough center was a normal color and not dyed blue. So my only objection to this cookie was the blue dye. I almost wanted to eat more than a bite but I had two more cookies to try so I wrapped this one in pieces as well and stuck them in the freezer for another day.

Biscoff Gingerbread

The cookie I most wanted to try from this week's lineup was the Biscoff Gingerbread. Although I'm not a big fan of gingerbread anything, I am a cookie butter lover. Plus I thought the gingerbread would complement the cookie butter and it did. 

This was also another good cookie with crisp edges and that layer of cookie butter "stuffed" in the middle. If you like gingerbread, this one's for you. It didn't have a strong gingerbread or molasses flavor but was just right. 

By the time I got to this though, the cookie was no longer warm and the cookie butter lava wasn't melty lava so much as a soft interior of the cookie center. I could have warmed it up for the lava flow but I've learned I prefer Crave's cookie textures when they're more solid and not mushy-soft as they tend to be when they're warm. Still good but I like the lukewarm texture of their cookies as opposed to warm and mushy.

I didn't love the nonpareils but I understand they added it for that Christmas flare and it does make the cookie look pretty. It just didn't add anything for me. 

Red Velvet Oreo

The last of the 4 bites I took of cookies that day was this Red Velvet Oreo. Also amazingly good. I really enjoy Crave's texture and the thickness of their cookies. This too was not overwhelmingly chocolatey. It's a more typical cookie though and one I could probably make as a copycat. Still good though and rounded off the 4-pack I got.

Since even I cannot eat 4 cookies in one go, I had a bite of each cookie and then stuck them in the freezer to enjoy, one piece at a time, in the future. At this rate, I have enough cookie pieces to see me through the end of the year and beyond. Not a bad problem to have.

To sum up, my ranking for last week's cookies would be The Cookie Monster, the Red Velvet Oreo, the Biscoff Gingerbread and, bringing up the rear mostly because of that whipped cream frosting, the Better Than XXX cookie. So far I'm enjoying the Crave cookie offerings. As long as I stay away from the ones that have a lot of frosting or whipped cream, they offer more interesting flavors than Crumbl. Or else Crave is still new enough to me to be a novelty. We'll see how that holds up in the coming months.