My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies are a chewy, crunchy, and buttery delicious version of an old-favorite. With brown butter and dark brown sugar, you’re sure to enjoy these cookies.

Techniques

• Brown Butter
• Cream Sugar and Butter

How it Works

Brown Butter

Browning butter is a technique used in many cookie recipes to add a toasted nutty flavor to cookies. It works by toasting the butter solids. You achieve this by heating butter at a medium-low temperature until the butter solids fall out of the solution and turn a golden-brown.

Cream Butter and Sugar

Many baking recipes require that you cream together the butter and sugar. But why is this such an important step? Beating the butter and sugar fully incorporates the sugar into the butter, preventing “hot spots” of butter or sugar in your dough. This process also incorporates air into the mixture, leading to a lighter and fluffier cookie.

What you Need

• Flour: The standard all-purpose flour works great in these cookies.
• Brown Butter: For additional instructions on how to make brown butter, you can go to my post “How to Make Brown Butter.”
• Sugar: Granulated sugar works great in these cookies.
•  Dark Brown Sugar: Dark brown sugar has a higher percentage of molasses than light brown sugar. This will increase the molasses flavor in your cookies.
• Vanilla Extract
• Salt
• Baking Soda: This is the leavening agent for the chocolate chip cookies. I use baking soda instead of baking powder because these cookies contain brown sugar, an acidic agent that activates the baking soda.
• Chocolate Chips: You can use any chocolate chips for these cookies. A chunkier chocolate chip will be harder to fully integrate into the dough.

How to Make My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Take 1 ½ sticks of butter and melt the butter in a pot, allowing the butter solids to turn golden-brown. Transfer to a heat-safe bowl and allow the brown butter to cool to room temperature. It should thicken enough that it stays on a spoon without dripping.

In a large bowl, add the brown butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar and beat with a hand mixer for 1-3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and one egg and beat for an additional minute. The mixture should now have a fluffy-whipped texture.

In a medium bowl, add flour, salt, and baking soda. Whisk until fully combined. I recommend you whisk for an additional minute past when you think it’s fully combined to ensure the salt and baking soda are evenly incorporated into the flour.

Add the flour mixture in 1/3 intervals at a time to the large bowl. Mix with the hand mixer until the dough is too thick to handle. Then, continue to mix with your hands. The dough should be very thick. If the dough is too thick to handle, you can add 1-2 tsp of water to help ease the mixing process.

Add a cup of your favorite chocolate chips and mix with your hands until fully incorporated. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop your dough into a ball and bake at 375F for 11-14 minutes.