Brown butter and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt make these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies every bit as delicious as a fancy bakery cookie. You won’t believe you were able to make them at home!
Cook butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring often, until it foams up and then browns. This should take about 6–8 minutes. Don’t take your eyes off it because no one wants burnt butter bits in their cookies. Remove the pan from the heat and allow it to cool for 15 minutes.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with an electric mixer or wooden spoon (yes, you can mix this dough by hand) combine the sugars, salt and cooled brown butter. Mix until smooth.
Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
Stir together the flour and baking soda and gradually add it to the butter mixture. Mix until it just comes together, but don’t overmix. Fold in the chocolate of your choice. The chocolate chips may not seem to adhere to batter very well due to the melted butter, so I like to place the dough into a gallon zip-top bag and kind of roll the dough into a log to push the chips into the dough while it chills.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. I typically shoot for overnight, but you can go as long as 24 hours.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
Let the dough sit out at room temperature while the oven preheats. It will be quite hard until it sits out for a bit. Use a medium cookie scoop to portion the dough onto the prepared baking sheets. You should end up with right around 24 cookies.
Bake cookies in preheated oven for 12-13 minutes, or until the edges barely start to brown. The centers will appear undercooked, this is what you’re looking for. At this point, you can press some additional chips or chunks into the tops of the cookies and give them each a light sprinkling of flaky sea salt - both of these steps are completely optional, but totally delicious. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet placed on a wire cooling rack.
Notes
*Use whatever chocolate you prefer, milk, semi-sweet or dark - your call.Slightly adapted from Tasty