"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.