Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hi, my name is Kristin! I own and operate Rustic Culture, a handmade sign shop. In my spare time, especially during the holidays, I take a break from making signs to do something else I love…baking! Baking, for me, is another creative outlet because I like to find recipes and shake things up by changing or adding to them. It’s also a stress reliever for me when I feel overwhelmed, whether it’s from trying to get orders out on time or stress from family life. 

This holiday season I found some great recipes. My pièce de résistance was my chocolate chip cookie recipe. I experimented this year and came up with an awesome cookie, drawing inspiration from two other recipes. Before this year my cookies always came out flat and so did my baking ego…if that’s a thing. So I made it a goal to make delish cookies this year.

The first inspirational recipe, which I love, is a chocolate chip cookie recipe in Jessie James’ “Just Feed Me” cook book. My sister made these cookies for the first time two years ago and I thought they were fantastic. This recipe is salt forward and if you don’t follow the directions it will result in an extremely salty cookie. Trust me, I learned the hard way. 

The second inspirational recipe was one that I found online for a brown butter chocolate chip cookie from the Ambitious Kitchen by Monique Volz. I stumbled across this recipe because of the cinnamon roll recipe I found on The Ambitious Kitchen, which I’ll get to because they were amazing! Now, I didn’t make this cookie recipe, but used it for the directions on making and adding the brown butter. Since I have never browned butter before I needed some guidance and this recipe was perfect.   

Brown butter can go wrong only one way…burnt butter, and that’s gross. Browning butter isn’t hard, you don’t need special kitchen tools or a thermometer. All you need is butter (salted or unsalted, your choice. Although, most people say your can’t brown salted butter, but I did and it was fine), a sauce pot and a whisk. Put the butter in the pot over medium heat and whisk. The catch? You have to keep whisking until the butter is done. If the butter simmers over the heat in one spot for too long it will burn. But when it’s done, O-M-G it will be a golden tan color with a glorious nutty aroma. 

The recipe below is my personal recipe. When I doubled it I got about 72 cookies out of it using a cookie batter scoop. I’ve avoided the scooper for so long because, why not just use a spoon? This scooper made my cookie baking life soooooo much easier! Now with that said, the scooper is kind of a pain in the butt, when you squeeze the handles to release the dough the metal gear skips a tooth and the little “dough swiper” doesn’t go all the way to the edge. So, is it possible I was squeezing too hard? Most likely, I do have a tendency to over tighten things and go full fledged overkill on things that don’t need it. Maybe you’ll have better luck with your scooper?

Let’s get to it!

Glorious Brown Butter Chocolate Chip

Preheat oven - 375º

Ingredients:

1 cup Unsalted butter (I used salted, use whichever you prefer)

1/2 cup White sugar

1 cup Dark brown sugar (or light brown sugar, it’s up to you)

1 tsp Himalayan pink salt

2 tsp Vanilla extract

2 large Eggs

2 1/2 cups AP unbleached flour (I use King Arthur, but any all purpose flour will do)

1 tsp Baking soda

1/4 tsp Baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt (watch your salt amounts if you used salted butter. Try 1/4 tsp first and add if you feel like it needs more)

1 1/2 to 2 cups Semisweet chocolate chips (I use a little wiggle room with my chip amounts because I don’t like a lot of chips)

 

Instructions:

Place butter in a medium sauce pot over medium heat. Whisking continuously, bring to a simmer until butter is a golden brown color with a nutty aroma (5-8 minutes). Whisking continuously will insure your butter does not burn. Once done pour into a glass measuring cup or a heat safe vessel. Set aside and let cool (I left mine in the fridge over night). 

If you let your butter sit over night you’ll want it to be soft before you add it to other ingredients. I microwaved mine for about 35 seconds or until soft and mixed it with a spoon to combine all the milk fats that sank to the bottom. If you let your butter come down to room temperature you’re going to want to drizzle it into the mixing bowl. 

Ok, grab a large mixing bowl cream your butter, all your sugars, himalayan salt and vanilla extract. Add the eggs, one at a time until combined. 

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt.

Slowly adid your flour mixture to the creamed sugars until fully combined. When combined mix in the chocolate chips. 

With a cookie scooper scoop out cookie dough and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake at 375º for approximately 9 minutes, give or take depending on how you like your cookies.

Enjoy!

-Kristin

Ps. - As far as nutritional facts I don’t have any. What I do know is there’s some calories and sugar in these bad boys.