Brown Sugar babe…
I gets high off your love I don’t know how to behave…
D’Angelo said it best when he sung Brown Sugar. Bae baaae, let me tell you about these cookies. I had never made brown butter cookies but, I knew brown butter had become all the rage in the US baking community a few years back. Now, when I was younger my Mom and Grandma would have asked what you going to do with that burnt butter girl??? But, just to be clear, brown butter and burnt butter are two different things.
I decided to make these cookies after a fellow food photographer on IG expressed her frustrations with her brown butter cookies. Most notably she expressed her concerns with the fact her cookies were flat and spread way too much. I reached out and asked her if she would share her recipe with me so I could try and help. Over the years I’ve learned a few things about cookies and in fact there are four distinct characteristics of cookies that are directly tied to the ingredients you use and they are, spread, chewiness, softness, crispness. With the issues she expressed she was havinging, spread, I knew the issue could be related the the temperature of the dough, liquid and/or flour. I went into research mode and started looking up brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipes and comparing and analyzing them to hers. Many of the recipes I looked at were similar with minor tweeks.
Pro Tip
When using brown butter in anything make sure the butter is cool all the way through, I would go as far as to say even almost congelled. It is much more likely you will be able to work the fat into your recipe more evenly and control your spread/liquid.
As I mentioned earlier brown butter is not the same as burnt butter. Let me say this again for those in the back, brown butter is not the same as burnt butter. Brown butter otherwise not in the culinary world as beurre noisette imparts a warm nutty flavor to your dishes is also sometimes referred to as hazelnut butter. Brown butter is made by melting unsalted butter over low heat until the butter fat and milk solids separate, the milk solids start to sink to the bottom of the pan and begin to brown. As they continue to cook you will begin to smell the warm nutty flavor from the toasting solids begin to fill the air. Once they’ve reached that hazelnut color remove from the heat and allow to cool.
For these cookies after I prepared my brown butter I allowed it to cool completely and then refrigerated it for about 20 min. In total this took several hours to cool to a stage where it wouldn’t warm my dough and cause too much spread. You could always make your butter in advance and make your cookies the next day to avoid the “are they done yet” clamering of the littles. Now on to the recipe
Brown Butter Chocolate chunk cookies
Unsalted butter 1 cup (2 sticks)
Bread flour 1 cup
All-Purpose flour 3/4 cup
Coarse sea salt 2 tsp
Baking soda 1 tsp
Light brown sugar 1 cup
Granulated sugar 1/2 cup
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
Espresso emulsion 1 tsp
Large egg 1
Egg yolk 1
Bittersweet chocolate (60% cacao), chopped 5 oz
Semi sweet chocolate chunks 5 oz
Instructions
Place butter a heavy bottom stainless steel skillet. Melt the butter over low heat, keeping an eye on it and stirring occassionally. Once melted, the butter will begin to foam. Keep stirring. Once you notice lightly browned specks begin to form at the bottom of the pan and you'll begin to smell a nutty aroma. Once browned, immediately remove from heat, pour into a heat-proof mixing bowl, and set aside.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda. Add the coarse sea salt to the mixture and set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using an electric hand mixer, cream together the sugars, salt, vanilla, espresso & cooled brown butter until combined and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and egg yolk and mix until incorporated.
Add the flour mixture, about 1/3 at a time, and mix between additions until just incorporated. Add the chopped chocolate and chocolate chunks into the dough
Using a medium cookie scoop, drop the dough on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
Bake in a 350°F preheated oven for 12 - 13 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Enjoy the warm ooey gooey chocolate goodness with a slight bite of salt.
