Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
This recipe was directly inspired by Sabrina Stavenjord’s Brown Butter cookie recipe off TikTok, with a few alterations to match my personal preference.
I could not find a blog or direct website for Sabrina, but here is her TikTok and her Instagram pages if you wanted to follow along with the amazing stuff she creates. Zero chance that this will be the last recipe of hers I make - the woman is unreal.
This is the best thing I’ve ever baked…
INGREDIENTS YOU WILL NEED:
Butter (salted) - 1 cup (2 sticks) + 2 more tbsp
White sugar - 3/4 cup
Brown sugar - 3/4 cup
AP Flour - 2 1/2 cups
Baker’s brand 56% cocoa chocolate bar (or a close equivalent brand/bar that is similar), chopped into small to medium shards - 1 cup
Eggs - 2
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tsp hot water - 1 tsp or strong coffee - 2 tbsp
Vanilla extract - 2 1/2 tbsp
UTENSILS I’D SUGGEST HAVING:
Baking sheet
Wire cooling rack(s) - for cooling cookies
Stand mixer (optional) + spatula attachment — if you don’t have a stand mixer, you can easily do this with a hand mixer or even by hand, it’ll just take you a little longer. The general rule here is to not overmix once the dry ingredients come into play, so just be mindful of that step.
Silicone spatula
Sifter - for flour
Parchment paper
Medium or large saucepan
Chopping knife
Cutting board
Large mixing bowl
Medium mixing bowl
2-inch cookie scoop
Ziplock freezer bag (optional) - for storing extra cookie dough
Flat spatula - for moving cookies to cooling wrack
ORDER OF OPERATIONS:
Brown your butter and cool in the freezer
Combine your melted butter with both sugars in a stand mixer. Sift together your dry ingredients in a separate bowl
Add eggs, vanilla, and coffee to the mixer and mix. Add half the dry ingredients, mix until almost incorporated, and then mix the other half. Add chocolate chunks.
Plastic wrap the mixing bowl and refrigerate. Using a cookie scoop, portion out cookies onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and place the sheet in the freezer until cookie dough balls are frozen
Preheat oven and add cookies frozen to a parchment-lined baking sheet and cook for 13-14 minutes. After a minute or two of cooling on the sheet, carefully move to the wire rack for final cooling.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat? Yes - 375 degrees F (190 C)
Chop butter into smaller chunks to help it melt faster and place in your saucepan over medium-high heat. Stirring every few minutes, you will brown the melted butter until it becomes a medium amber color and smells almost nutty.
Tip: your butter will go through several stages during this process; you’ll see the standard melted butter stage where milk solids are floating on top, through a bubbling stage that almost pops and makes noise as if you were cooking with grease, and sometimes there will be a little foam on top before it comes to the right color — don’t worry, these are all fine and it’ll calm down when it’s nearly done.
Tip #2: the butter can go from amber and nice-smelling to burnt fairly quickly, so you do not want to walk away from it once the color starts to change.
While the butter is browning, place your chocolate bar on a cutting board and angle the knife diagonally to shave off shards and chunks of chocolate off the bar.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder together and set aside.
Once butter is done, pour into a medium mixing bowl and place in the freezer for 10-12 minutes. You’re not looking for the butter to solidify again or cool completely, just cool it down enough so that it does not immediately melt the sugar when you combine them.
Cream your butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together in a stand mixer with a spatula attachment for 2-3 minutes.
If you’re using espresso powder, take this time to dissolve 1 tsp of it into 1 tsp of hot water. If you’re brewing coffee or espresso, make this now - you will only need 2 tbsp of coffee.
Add your two cracked eggs, vanilla extract, and espresso to your stand mixer while it is still mixing on medium low.
Add half of your sifted dry ingredients to the mixing bowl, mix until almost incorporated, and then mix in the other half. Then add your chocolate chunks at the very end - do not overmix, just mix until the flour is no longer visible.
Tip: periodically through this process, you can use a spatula to scrape down the line of unmixed sugar/flour that will typically build up where the attachment cannot reach
Place a sheet of plastic wrap over the mixing bowl and place in the fridge to cool for 15-30 minutes. If you need to, this dough can be refrigerated at this stage until the next day, but it’s not necessary.
Using a cookie scoop, portion out your cookies onto a parchment-lined baking sheet close to one another but not touching and place the whole sheet uncovered into the freezer for 30 minutes or until the dough is completely frozen.
Tip: this recipe made about 16 cookies for me, but I did not want to immediately bake all 16. Place any extra cookie dough in a freezer Ziplock bag and just bake the amount you want now.
Bake cookies at least 2-3 inches apart from one another on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 13-15 minutes. You’re looking for the edges of the cookies to turn slightly dark compared to the middle, but don’t worry if your cookies are too soft - they will firm up as they cool.
Remove your sheet from the oven and allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes before moving them into a wire rack to finish cooling and store in an airtight container or Ziplock.
Enjoy!
