What do you get when you brown butter, add in quality chocolate chunks, and sprinkle flaky salt on top? Any guesses? Fine, I’ll tell you; you get these cookies. These delightful, crispy, chewy, cookies with chocolate puddles scattered throughout. I have been sort of crazed when it comes to chocolate chip cookies. When I was in high school, I set out to find the PERFECT chocolate chip cookie recipe. I went through blog after blog, adding things to different recipes and taking other things out. It was two years of trial-and-error until I finally made the cookie recipe I love. Unfortunately for you, the recipe for those chocolate chip cookies is under wraps, BUT I worked really hard to make this recipe for you. My secret recipe is weight only, and I just don’t think it’s very fair for me to post a weight only recipe when I know most of you guys are working with cups. So, I finagled my classic recipe to fit your needs, and I think you guys are doing to LOVE them.
What is Brown Butter? Why do I Add WATER to Cookies?!
Browning butter is the act of heating butter to the point of the separation of the milk fats from the butter oil. This is around boiling point for butter. Once the milk fats separate, they will fall to the bottom of the sauce pan. You should continue heating until the solids at the bottom become a bit darker than caramel brown. Make sure to not burn the butter, but I do know a lot of people who take their brown butter to almost black. It’s up to you. I like mine to be dark brown. Because you brown the butter, water evaporates from the butter. Losing this water loses moisture in your cookie, so it is imperative that you add back some of the water like the recipe states. I know this is a bit unconventional, but if you don’t do this, your cookies will be dry and the dough will be hard to maneuver.
You give a Range of Flour Amount, why?
So, I found that 2.5 cups of flour yields a nice, flat, cookie, about 1/8th-1/4th of an inch in height . The edges get very crisp, and the middle stays nice and chewy and gooey. If you go up to 3 cups, the cookies about double in height, still pretty flat at about 1/4th-1/2 of an inch. I left it up to you because I know my cookie preference will not be everyone’s cookie preference. Whichever way you go with your flour addition though, your cookies will still turn out delicious, guaranteed.
This cookie only had 2.5 cups of flour
These cookies had 3 cups of flour
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter
- 2 tablespoons Water
- ¾ cup Dark Brown Sugar (can substitute with light brown)
- ¾ cup Light Brown Sugar
- ¾ cup Granulated Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 2½-3 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1½ teaspoons Table Salt
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1¼ teaspoons Baking Powder
- 10 ounces Chocolate (you can chop chocolate bars, use high quality baking chips, or use chocolate chips)
- 1 teaspoon Maldon Flaky Salt (optional)
Instructions
- In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, brown the butter. If you are unfamiliar with browning butter, I recommend looking up a video on Youtube, there are a million videos out there. I would not recommend skipping this step, as brown butter is an essential flavor to making these the best cookies.
- Once your butter is browned, transfer it to a large bowl and add 2 tablespoons of water to the butter. Allow to cool down to room temp or until the butter is solidified. Once the butter is solidified, the water will just be sitting on top of it. Use a stand mixer or hand mixer to beat the butter and water until they emulsify.
- Add the sugars to the butter and beat until light and fluffy, for 1-2 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined, about 1 minute. At this point, use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and scrape the batter off of the bottom. Make sure all of the batter is evenly combined and mix together for about 1 more minute.
- Add the flour, table salt, baking soda, and baking powder to a separate medium-sized bowl. Whisk to combine. Add the combined dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix the dry into the wet until just a few streaks of flour remain. At this point add in your chocolate. I prefer using chopped chocolate bars, but you can also use high quality chocolate baking chips, or just classic chocolate chips, it is up to you.
- Use a rubber spatula to fold in the chocolate. Make sure it is evenly distributed and no streaks of flour remain. Portion the dough into tablespoon-sized cookie dough balls. Bake on 350°F for 12-15 minutes. I like to freeze my cookie dough for at least 24 hours before baking it. It allows the flavors to muddle together and yields an incredible cookie. If you can't wait that long though, you can definitely bake these right away. The dough will last in the freezer for at least 2 months.
- Once the cookies are baked, sprinkle each with a pinch of flaky salt, this is an optional but delicious step. Enjoy!
Follow me on Instagram @BAKINGWITHLEMON and hashtag your posts #BAKINGWITHLEMON if you make one of my recipes! I adore seeing you guys get creative with baking!
I made these for the 2nd time and they are my new go to chocolate chip cookie recipe! I used 2.75 cups flour, which made the perfect cookie in my book. I also added 1 cup of chopped pecans. Everyone that I share them with LOVES them too. 🙂
I made these cookies for the first time last week and LOVED them! I used a little bit less than 3 cups of flour and under baked them just a tad so they would be chewy. The browned butter makes a huge difference in the flavour of the cookie. My new go to cookie recipe!
I love to hear that these worked out for you! Thank you so much for trying my recipe!