Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies are a crowd pleasing dessert, perfect for holiday baking or special occasions. This recipe calls for resting the cookie dough for two days and sprinkling the baked cookies with sea salt,  elevating these delicious cookies to something you’d find in a high end bakery!

These Brown Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt sound like a decadent cookie you’d get at a fancy bakery.   And, they taste like it too! 

There are a few tricks that make this recipe really unique:

• The first is browned butter in the place of regular butter, giving the cookies a richer flavor.
• The second is toffee, which melts into delicious caramelized sugar bits
• Third is resting the dough 36-48 hours. This allows the flavors to meld together and that is what gives it that bakery look and flavor. 

While they’re not as easy as oatmeal raisin cookies or double chocolate cookies, if you’re wondering if these are worth it, yes, they totally are! This is a perfect cookie recipe for the holidays or special occasions such as birthdays, office parties, or bake sales.  And, while it sounds complicated it’s not actually that hard to get your own bakery style brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookie that will totally wow.  

INGREDIENTS

• Brown Butter– using brown butter in place of regular butter gives the cookies a really rich flavor.   This involves cooking the butter until the fat and milk solids in butter, separate and the milk solids start to brown creating a delicious, nutty flavor. 
• Toffee – This recipe makes its own toffee using butter and brown sugar. It really melts well with the brown butter and chocolate. You can easy use pre-made toffee like Skor or Heath
• Espresso Powder – this adds a delicious depth of flavor to these cookies without adding any actual coffee flavor. You can also substitute instant coffee. 
• Sea Salt – Adding flakey sea salt really rounds out these delicious cookies 
• High Quality Dark Chocolate –  using a good quality makes a big difference in this recipe. I recommend dark chocolate but you can use your favorite chocolate bar. 

Other Ingredients:

• Butter
• Brown Sugar
• Sugar
• Salt
• Eggs 
• Baking soda
• Vanilla 
• All-purpose flour

Making Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

There are a few steps to making these cookies. The first is making the toffee:

Making Homemade Toffee 

The toffee for these cookies is actually really easy to make! You add the 6 tbsp butter and 3/4 cup brown sugar and cook/stir over medium heat until it reached 290 ℉.  Then, you pour onto a prepared baking sheet lined with parchment and freeze until it hardens.

Making Brown Butter

For this recipe, we are browning 1 cup of unsalted butter.   You can use any pan or pot when browning butter, but I find a light colored pan makes it a little easier to watch the milk solids brown.   Place the butter in the pan and cook over medium heat until the butter melts and starts to boil.  

Stirring the butter, keep cooking it over medium heat until the milk solids separate. While cooking, the mixture will bubble up and look very foamy, this is totally normal, just keep stirring.

Once the milk solids start to separate, the bubbles will subside a little. At this point, turn down the heat to medium low and continue cooking the milk solids until they are a nice brown color.  The whole process can take less than 10 minutes, so watch the brown butter very carefully as it is easy to burn. Once it’s browned, you’ll add in ice to add the back some evaporated liquid as well as cool down the mixture. You want the brown butter to be cool before including it in the cookie dough recipe. 

Making Cookie Dough 

Once you have your brown butter cooling down and your toffee in the freezer, it’s time to mix the rest of your ingredients. I like to measure and mix everything first, and then combine. This also helps give a few extra minutes for the brown butter to cool down.

Prep:  In a large bowl, measure out your granulated sugar, brown sugar, espresso powder, salt and baking soda and mix together and set aside.  Then, in a separate bowl mix together two eggs and vanilla.  Chop up the chocolate bar and toffee. 

Mix:  (1) Add the cooled brown butter mixture to the sugar mixture and stir until it is completely mixed together. Then, (2) mix in the egg mixture, and stir until completely combined. Then, (3) add the flour and (4) continue mixing until it is combined and there is no visible flour.  After you mixed your cookie dough, (5) add the toffee and chopped chocolate and (6) stir until it is combined.

Resting and Baking Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Now, similar to Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies, you’ll be forming balls of cookie dough and resting it for 36- 48 hours.  

Line a baking sheeting with parchment paper or a silicone mat and divide the dough into balls to rest it in the fridge.  If your cookie dough is too soft and spreads when you try to divide it, place the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge or freezer for 20 minutes to cool down.  That should help it to form easier not spread. 

Because we’re only resting the dough at this point, and not baking it,  you can place the balls of cookie dough close together on your baking sheet:

I went full on bakery style for these cookies, so I used ¼ dough cup per cookie. These made huge cookies! And they spread a lot, so be sure to place them at least at least 3-4 inches apart when baking.

You can also make regular cookies by using 2 tablespoons per cookie and keeping the cookies 2 -3 inches apart when baking. A small cookie scoop is great for this. When ready to bake, place on a parchment or silicone baking sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes for large cookies and 12-14 minutes for regular cookies in a 325 ℉ preheated oven. 

Tips for two day brown butter chocolate chip cookies:

• Don’t want to make toffee? Buy it! You can use store bought toffee in place of making it. You’ll want 6-7 ounces toffee in place of the homemade recipe.  You can also omit the toffee altogether and replace with more chocolate.
• Measure out the flour using the spoon and swipe method of spooning the flour into the measure cups and swiping the excess off the top with a knife. If you dip the measuring cup directly into the flour, it can pack down and you will add too much flour to the recipe.
• Make sure the brown butter has cooled down before adding to the sugar. If it’s too warm it can start to cook the sugar making the final cookies grainy. 
• This makes a very soft dough but if firms up in the fridge.  If after you make the cookie dough, it is still too warm and spreads out when you try to form cookie dough balls, place the bowl of cookie dough back in the fridge or freezer for 20 minutes to firm up and try forming the cookie dough balls again. 
• I used a ¼ cup ice cream scoop for each cookie, which makes a big bakery style cookie. You can make regular sized cookies using 2 tbsp of dough.
• Let the cookies cool completely before you remove them from the pans. 
• These will keep for 4-5 days in an airtight container in the fridge or at room temperature.

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Brown Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

These brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies are a crowd pleasing dessert, perfect for holiday baking or special occasions. This recipe calls for resting the cookie dough for two days and sprinkling the baked cookies with sea salt, elevating these delicious cookies to something you’d find in a high end bakery!

4.86 from 7 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Resting Time: 2 days

Total Time: 2 days 1 hour 5 minutes

Servings: 16 Cookies

Calories: 438kcal

Author: Sophia Assunta

INGREDIENTS

Toffee

• ▢ 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ▢ ¾ cup brown sugar light or dark, lightly packed
• ▢ 1 tsp kosher salt
• ▢ water as needed

Cookie Dough

• ▢ 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into 1 inch pieces
• ▢ 3-4 ice cubes 1.5-2 oz
• ▢ 1 tsp kosher salt
• ▢ ¾ cup granulated sugar
• ▢ 1 ½ cups brown sugar light or dark, packed
• ▢ 2 tsp espresso powder
• ▢ 2 tsp kosher salt
• ▢ 2 large eggs
• ▢ ½ tsp baking soda
• ▢ 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ▢ 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
• ▢ 6 oz high quality chocolate chopped
• ▢ flaky sea salt for sprinkling (optional)

Instructions

Toffee

• Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat
• In a medium saucepan melt butter, brown sugar, and salt over medium heat. Stir until the butter has fully incorporated into the sugar.
• Stirring constantly, continue cooking the toffee mixture until it reaches 280-290 degrees F on a candy thermometer. If the mixture starts to separate and get oily, add a few teaspoons of water and remix very fast until it comes back together. It should take about 10-15 minutes to reach 290 degrees.
• Once the toffee reaches the desired temperature, immediately remove from heat and pour onto the prepared baking sheet.
• Let cool for about 10 minutes at room temperature so you’re not placing boiling hot pan in your freezer. Once it’s cooled down slightly, place the entire baking sheet in the freezer while you prepare the cookie dough. You can make the toffee up to an hour or two in advance.

Brown Butter

• Cut the 2 sticks of butter into 1 inch pieces. In a medium saucepan or pot melt the butter over medium to medium high heat.
• The butter will bubble up at first. But, keep slowly stirring and after about 5 minutes the bubbles will lessen and you will start to see the milk solids at the bottom of the pan start to brown. At this point, I normally turn down the heat to medium or medium low. Continue cooking until the butter has a nutty smell and the majority milk solids are a dark amber brown color. Watch carefully, and be careful not to burn the brown butter. You do not want it black.
• Once the butter has browned, remove from heat. Add one ice cube. The mixture will bubble up a lot, so slowing stir it in and let the ice cube melt.
• Add the remaining ice cubes and stir until melted.
• Continue to let the brown butter cool while you mix up the remaining ingredients.

Cookie Dough

• If you haven’t done so already, chop the chocolate bars and set aside.
• Mix the granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, espresso powder, and baking soda in a large bowl.
• Measure our 2 ½ cups flour (spooned and leveled) and set aside.
• In a smaller bowl, whisk together the 2 eggs and 2 tsp vanilla extracts, and set aside.
• Pour the melted brown butter into the granulated sugar mixture and mix with a whisk or spatula until completely combined.
• Add the 2/ ½ cups flour the butter and sugar mixture. Using a spatula, mix until there is no visible flour in the mixture, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to incorporate everything.
• Then, stir in the egg/vanilla mixture and continue mixing until combined.
• At this point, you can take out the toffee from the freezer. If the toffee is too frozen to chop like you did the chocolate, you can break it into a few smaller pieces and add to a gallon ziplock bag. Seal the bag (you can also double bag the toffee as the toffee can break through the bag ). Hit the bagged toffee with a rolling pin until bite sized chunks form.
• Add the toffee and the chopped chocolate to the cookie dough and thoroughly mix using a spatula or your hands.
• Place a piece or parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
• Once it’s mixed you can use a ¼ measuring cup or an ice cream scoop to measure out balls of dough onto the prepared cookie sheet. At this point, since we’re only resting the cookie dough, you can place them close together on the pan.
• If the dough is still warm and spreads out when you try to form balls of dough, you can put the whole bowl in the fridge or freezer for 20 minutes to cool it down. This should help make it easier to form the cookies.
• Cover the tray with plastic wrap, leaving a small corner uncovered to allow the cookies to dry out a bit.
• Place the cookie tray in the fridge for 36-48 hours.
• When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Line multiple baking trays with parchment paper or silicone mats.
• Place 4 to 6 cookies on the cookie sheet at least 2-3 inches apart from each other. These are big cookies that spread a lot!
• Bake 18-20 minutes
• Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle with sea salt (optional).
• Let cool completely before trying to remove from the baking tray.

Notes

• This recipe makes 16 extra large cookies or about 3 dozen regular cookies.
• I used a ¼ cup ice cream scoop for each cookie, which makes a big bakery style cookie. You can make regular sized cookies using about 2 tbsp of dough.
• These will keep for 4-5 days in an airtight container in the fridge or at room temperature.
• The recipe can be halved or doubled as needed. Don't want to make toffee? Buy it! You can use store bought toffee in place of making it. You’ll want 6-7 ounces toffee in place of the homemade recipe.  You can also omit the toffee altogether and replace with more chocolate.
• Measure out the flour using the spoon and swipe method of spooning the flour into the measure cups and swiping the excess off the top with a knife. If you dip the measuring cup directly into the flour, it can pack down and you will add too much flour to the recipe.
• Make sure the brown butter has cooled down before adding to the sugar. If it’s too warm it can start to cook the sugar making the final cookies grainy. 
• This makes a very soft dough but if firms up in the fridge.  If after you make the cookie dough, it is still too warm and spreads out when you try to form cookie dough balls, place the bowl of cookie dough back in the fridge or freezer for 20 minutes to firm up and try forming the cookie dough balls again. 
• Let the cookies cool completely before you remove them from the pans. 
• This recipe is adapted from this Buzzfeed Tasty video

Nutrition

Serving: 1Cookie | Calories: 438kcal | Carbohydrates: 60g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 21g | Saturated Fat: 13g | Cholesterol: 63mg | Sodium: 642mg | Potassium: 153mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 42g | Vitamin A: 520IU | Calcium: 44mg | Iron: 2.5mg

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