These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are the perfect cookie. The brown butter gives these cookies a rich toffee flavor and a hint of salt. They have crisp, golden edges, a nice crust on the outside, but are still soft and gooey in the center with melty semisweet chocolate.
Why this Recipe Works
I spent years trying to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I tested dozens before deciding to just come up with my own. The brown butter and high baking temperature I think it what gives these brown butter chocolate chip cookies an edge.
The brown butter offers a subtle nutty flavor that blends perfectly with the molasses in the brown sugar to give the cookie that amazing rich slightly smoky and nutty toffee flavor.
Baking your cookies at a higher temperature will cook the outside of the cookie faster before the inside cooks too much. This trick is going to give you those crispy edges and exterior and keep the inside nice and soft.
Ingredient Notes
- Butter. The amount of butter listed in the ingredients is the amount needed before you brown it. Once browned you will probably lose about 25% of your butter as liquid evaporates during the browning process.
- Brown Sugar. We use a higher proportion of brown sugar to white sugar in this recipe. The molasses in the brown sugar compliments the brown butter well and amps up that amazing toffee-butterscotch flavor. If you want an amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe without brown sugar, we have a delicious and super easy one!
- Flour. A classic, no-frills, all-purpose flour is all we use here. The most important thing when it comes to flour is making sure you don't use too much-spoon and level, weigh, and check out our guide on How to Measure Flour Correctly.
- Semisweet Chocolate Chips. I prefer semisweet chocolate chips over milk in this recipe. The slight bitterness from the semisweet chocolate chips adds the perfect contrast to this rich brown butter chocolate chip cookies.
How to Make this Recipe
- How to Brown Butter. Start by browning your butter. Place the butter in a heavy bottomed pan, make sure it is large as the butter tends to foam up quite a bit. Keep stirring it over medium-high heat until the butter has reached an amber color and there are brown bits at the bottom. Consult out How to Brown Butter tutorial for FAQs on browning butter, pictures, and a video!
- Chill the butter. Place the butter in a large bowl and chill or freeze until it has returned to a solid state. You want it to be room temperature, solid, but soft enough to be creamed. Chilling the butter is essential to these brown butter chocolate chip cookies, so do not try to skip this step. Picture A shows what the butter will look like after it is chilled and Picture B shows it after it has been moved to the mixing bowl. Notice the toasted milk solids (the dark bits) have sunk to the bottom of the dish. Don't forget to get all those dark bits into your mixing bowl, they add lots of toasted butter flavor!
- Cream the butter and sugar. Cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar for 1 minute.
- Add the eggs. Then add the eggs and vanilla and beat for another 2-3 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. Please note: the image pictured is a double batch, which is why you see 4 eggs in the image instead of 2.
- Add the dry ingredients. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients in so they are just barely incorporated. Overworking the dough will result in tough cookies.
- Add the chocolate chips. Stir in the chocolate chips until they are evenly dispersed throughout the dough.
- Bake. Take 4 tablespoons of dough and shape into round balls. Place on a greased or lined baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Leave plenty of room for the cookies to spread (I typically place 6 cookie dough balls on a baking sheet). Let the cookies cool for 2-3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
When butter is browned the milk solids are toasted giving it a nutty and toffee flavor that complements the rest of the ingredients. If 1 ¼ cups of butter seems like a lot to you in this recipe it is because butter loses about 25% of its liquid when it is browned. So you end up with closer to 1 cup of butter by the time you add it into the mixing bowl.
If your cookies are too flat, this is usually a result of not chilling the butter after it has been browned. We need the butter chilled back to room temperature so that air can be whipped into it when it is creamed together with the sugars and eggs. Otherwise you will end up with puddles for cookies.
Typically, if your cookies are hard after they have cooled it means that you didn't make the cookies large enough. Remember, we're using about 4 tablespoons of dough per cookie. If you make them smaller they will end up slightly overbaked and won't have that same soft center that you get with the larger cookies.
Expert Tips
- Make sure your flour is measured correctly. Too much flour is a cardinal sin in baking. You need to take care when measuring it, I prefer to weigh my flour, but otherwise take a second to review our guide on How to Measure Flour Properly. Too much flour in your brown butter chocolate chip cookies can make them dry, tough, crumbly, or too thick, none of which are good.
- Get all the brown bits in your brown butter. After you brown your butter you'll see all sorts of little brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Those are toasted milk solids and they add a delicious toasted and salty flavor to the brown butter chocolate chip cookies. So scrape every last bit of them into your bowl for maximum flavor.
How to Make Pretty Cookies
- Make your cookies big. Bigger cookies look prettier. I use ¼ cup of dough for the perfect crispy and gooey ratio. This is my favorite cookie scoop to use.
- Top the off. Before you put your cookie dough balls in the oven top them with a few extra chocolate chips. This makes sure you've got some chocolate chips picture perfect on top of every cookie.
- Bang the Pan. Right when your cookies come out of the oven bang the pan on the counter. the pushes the cookies out and gives them those beautiful wrinkles.
- Make them circular. If your cookies are a little misshapen it's okay, you can fix them. While the cookies are still hot take your spatula and gently push in the edges anywhere the cookies aren't perfectly round. You can also use a large round cookie cutter or even a large mason jar to shape your brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Just move the cookie cutter in a circular motion around the cookie to make it a perfect circle.
How to Store this Recipe
How to Freeze Cookie Dough
I love to have a stock of these in my freezer for when I'm craving a cookie or in case I need to bring a little treat to someone fast! So here's what you'll want to do:
- Scoop the cookie dough into ¼ cup balls and line them up on a lined cookie sheet and place the entire cookie sheet in the freezer for 30-60 minutes. This is going to make sure they maintain their shape and don't get squished and misshapen in the freezer
- Then you can place them in a freezer safe gallon back or stack them on top of each other in a tupperware container, I like to place a piece of parchment paper, wax paper, or even plastic wrap in between the layers of cookie dough so that they don't get stuck to each other. You can freeze these for up to 3 months.
- Before baking, pull out however many cookie dough balls you want and let them sit out at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Then bake according to normal instructions, you may need to add a minute to the baking time
How to Store at Room Temperature
- To maintain the crispy edges and soft centers, my preferred method of storing these is to leave them on a plate or tray and loosely cover them with a towel overnight.
- If you decide to store them in a sealed container (like a Ziploc bag or Tupperware) The cookies will likely lose their crisp exterior and take on a chewy texture overall (still delicious though!).
You May Also Like These Other Cookie Recipes:
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Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup butter (280 grams) see notes
- ¾ cup granulated sugar (150 grams)
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar (200 grams)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 ¾ cups of flour (357 grams) measured correctly
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2-2 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips (360-480 grams)
Instructions
- Brown 1 ¼ cups of butter in a medium-large saucepan, stirring constantly over medium-high heat, until you reach a deep honey color. Remove from heat and pour into your mixing bowl. Cool butter in fridge or freezer until room temperature consistency, you want your butter to be solid. If you use it when its still liquid your cookies will be flat.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease baking sheets with cooking spray or line with silicone mats or parchment paper.
- Once butter has set up, cream together butter and both sugars for 1 minute. Add in eggs and vanilla for and additional 2-3 minutes until the mixture is pale and fluffy. (Make sure you get all those toasty brown bits at the bottom of your brown butter!)
- Add in flour, baking soda, and salt. Only mix the dry ingredients in until just barely combined-over mixing will make the cookies tough. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Take ¼ cup of dough (about 68 grams) and shape into round balls bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until the top and edges are just golden. Cool cookies on baking sheet for 2-3 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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originally published August 19, 2018
Nina says
Do you use regular brown sugar or dark brown? Would it make a difference if you used either or?
In Fine Taste says
Hi Nina, great question! I typically use regular brown sugar in this recipe. Dark brown sugar would give it a slightly chewier texture and give it a slightly richer caramel flavor.
- Alyssa
Mary says
Love this recipe. Can you Double this recipe and can you freeze the dough.
In Fine Taste says
So glad you liked them! You can definitely double the recipe and freeze the dough, I do it all the time! Form the cookie dough into balls before freezing. Then when you're ready to bake, just let the cookie dough balls sit out for 20-30 minutes before baking.
- Alyssa
Crys says
I typically make 1.5lbs-2lbs of browned butter at a time, I know it decreases im volume after cooking - so just curious of the measurement of butter AFTER browning
In Fine Taste says
Hi Crys,
The amount can vary depending on how long you brown the butter for. But generally, I’ve found that I lose about 20%. So in this recipe you would use about a cup of brown butter.
- Alyssa
Hollie says
Hi! I made these last weekend, and I followed the recipe exactly, did not weigh my flour, but followed you instructions for accurate measuring. The only deviation was that at the end, I realized I had not added the eggs, so rather than chucking everything I added them in and hoped for the best. The cookies turned out amazing! The best chocolate cookies I ever made - texture and flavor were great. However, they did not keep well. I let them cool completely (the ones I didn’t eat right out of the oven, haha) and then stacked them in an air tight plastic container. After a day or two, they got really soft, to the point that you couldn’t pick one up without it falling apart. And the flavor wasn’t as good-like all the fat in the cookie was separating out and it had almost an oily flavor. Could this have to do with the egg snafu? Or is there something else that went wrong? I would love it if you have ideas on how to troubleshoot because I could possibly eat the whole batch on the first day, but it would be nice to enjoy them over a few days. Thanks!
In Fine Taste says
Hi Hollie, unfortunately I don't have a good explanation for the cookies going soft and falling apart! That is very odd. I suppose it could be the late addition of the eggs??? Maybe?
Maybe try them again and see if that doesn't solve it. The one tip I do have is if you do want to just eat a few cookies, freeze the cookie dough in balls and then pull out a couple to bake as you want 🙂
Keep me posted if the recipe works out for you the second time around! I hope it does.
- Alyssa
Hollie says
Thanks for your response! Finally tried them again and they were perfect. I think the issue (which didn’t originally occur to me) may have been that the first time we stored them with some cake mix donuts that had a lot of oil in them. Glad I tried them again - this is a great recipe!!
Lindsey says
I think I could've stood to brown the butter a bit more(was my first time) however these were def a hit! I used both chocolate chips as well as reese's peanut butter chips and did chill the mixed batter for a few minutes before baking. Recipe is a keeper, yum!
Mattheworbit says
Pretty sure these were the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. It was a struggle to eat them because our jaws were DROPPED…! Crossing fingers for those weights so I can make them much more easily. Never trust my own!! :))(
Penelope says
These cookies look spectacular! What are the measurements in grams?[ for the flour, sugars, butter]
In Fine Taste says
Hi Penelope, I've updated the recipe to have all the ingredients in grams. Hope that helps!
- Alyssa
Stephanie says
Hi, I was wondering if you could provide the whole recipe in metric as well.
In Fine Taste says
Hi Stephanie, the recipe now has the ingredients listed in grams. Let me know if you have any other questions!
- Alyssa
Arthur says
Why you Americans have to speak with volumes instead of weight ?...
"firmly packed", "measured correctly"... It would be easier to have the recipe with weight indications for the rest of the civilized world.
Thank you
In Fine Taste says
Hi Arthur, I agree that weight measurements would usually be easier and more accurate. I have added the ingredients in grams as well to this recipe.
- Alyssa
Robert says
Hi, just made the dough but haven't baked yet. Is it normal for the dough to be pretty wet/sticky? I've made dough like this before and the cookies always turn out flat so I'm worried..
In Fine Taste says
Hi Robert,
The dough is not usually super wet or sticky. Did you chill the butter back to a solid state? If it's too wet and your cookies are spreading like crazy you can chill the dough for a while to help it set up and if it's still a problem add 1-2 tablespoons of flour until the dough is no longer wet/sticky.
- Alyssa
Mattheworbit says
Hey!
I’m just saw these posted on reddit and I’m browning butter for my first time so that I can make these. They look terrific. Thanks for the thorough guidance.
If you have the ingredient weights you use, it would be so helpful to post them as well!
Thanks.
In Fine Taste says
Hi Matt,
I don't have weight for the ingredients, but I will work on it and get them put in there! I hope the cookies turned out for you!
- Alyssa
Liv says
Hi, can you tell me the weight of each ingredient? I usually use a scale instead of measuring cups for flour and sugar. Thank you!
In Fine Taste says
Hi Liv, I have updated the recipe so it has the ingredients in grams as well as cups! Hope that helps!
- Alyssa
Sherry says
Fabulous cookies! I have never received so many kudos and requests for more. The browned butter adds a whole new dimension. Bought a kitchen scale just for these cookies because - why not? Problem is I can’t keep them in the house for more than 24 hours - they’re just that good!
Joy Deyarmond says
IMO, These are the best chocolate chip cookies! Sooo flavorful, big and gooey! Follow the recipe, and they will look just like the picture. Perfect for my palate! The search is over!
Dee says
These cookies are beyond amazing !!! This is my new “go-to” favourite
Sandra Bartram says
My search is over! Thank you for posting this amazing recipe!! I've been looking for YEARS for that perfect chocolate chip cookie. We were all anxious to try them on day 2, to see if they were just as good, and they are! I have tried many, many recipes that claimed to be the perfect or best chocolate chip cookie, but have been disappointed. I only made half the recipe because I was expecting it to not be that great. I will never make half of this recipe again!
Cindy says
These are, by far, the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made, and I have tried what seems like every ccc recipe there is! The cookies are beyond amazing. The brown butter definitely takes these cookies to another level. Thank you for this perfect chocolate chip cookie. Can’t wait to make these again and again!
Paula says
Loved these cookies! Did make a few changes though. i used a combination of AP and cake Flout equal parts. Then i used half milk chocolate and hc half Dark chocolate chips. Finally as my husband likes nuts in his chocolate chip cookies i added a half a cup each of chopped walnuts and Peacns. They came out beautifully
Jill says
Now I now why everyone is raving about Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. Definitely the best CCC recipe out there, all others go in the trash.
Breanna says
These turned out AMAZING!!!! The secret to a good chocolate chip cookie is to brown the butter! I thought I burnt the butter but like the recipe said, it’s not burnt! Turned out perfect!!! I’m going to make individual cookie boxes and use them for party favors for a 12 yr old birthday.
In Fine Taste says
Thanks so much, I'm so happy they worked out for you! And I LOVE that idea of cookie boxes for party favors! I might have to steal that one for the future 🙂
- Alyssa
Jenna says
Hi !
I'm confused I made into balls (1/4cup) they didn't flatten until the very end. Turned out nice and brown but raw on the inside .. is raw the "soft and chewy" meaning? Should I have flattened balls? Thanks
Jenna
Ps batter was delicious
In Fine Taste says
Hi Jenna,
So when I make my cookies, like you said, the flatten out at the very end and do tend to be a little gooey on the inside. They will set up at they cool and will be less gooey. If you don't like your cookies that soft in the center you can bake them a couple minutes longer or even lower the temperature to 350 and bake for a longer amount of time. Lowering the temperature will give you a more chewy cookies, and you won't get as crispy of an exterior/edges or the gooey center. Hope that helps!
- Alyssa
Josie says
Is this 1 1/4 cups of melted butter or solid butter?
In Fine Taste says
Hi Josie, it will be 1 1/4 cups of butter BEFORE you brown the butter. You will lose some of the volume when it is browned. Hope that helps!
- Alyssa
Katie says
My butter reduced to approx 1 1/8 cup; is this about right?
Thanks!
In Fine Taste says
That sounds about right!
- Alyssa
Kate says
I will never use another chocolate chip cookie recipe again! These are perfection!