Triple-Toasted Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep time: 30 min

Chill time: 3d

Cook time: 15 min

Total time: 3d 45min

Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies are a cherished childhood memory. This version is the grown-up evolution where flavors are deliberately intensified through a 72-hour aging process.

Through the Maillard reaction, we transform ordinary butter into nutty, toasted liquid gold. When paired with caramelized sugars and a cold fermentation period, the dough develops deep notes of toffee and butterscotch that the standard recipe simply cannot replicate.

Recipe Highlights:

1. The Chocolate: We hand-chop chocolate into irregular chunks to create wide, molten pools of cacao in every bite.
2. The Precision: To ensure the perfect consistency dough every time, this recipe uses weight (grams) over volume.
3. Pro Tip: For a mess-free way to measure dry ingredients, use a coffee filter as a disposable weigh boat on your kitchen scale.

Ingredients

The Sugars

1. 100g granulated sugar
2. 200g lightly packed brown sugar

Dry Ingredients

1. 190g all purpose flour
2. 127g bread flour
3. 1 tsp espresso powder
4. 1 tsp fine sea salt
5. 1 tsp baking soda
6. 0.5 tsp baking powder

Fats & Dairy

1. 2 large eggs
2. 1 egg yolk
3. 170g sticks of unsalted butter (1.5 sticks)
4. 57g of vegetable shortening
5. 4 tsp nonfat dry milk

The Chocolate

1. Tony's Chocoloney 70% dark chocolate
2. 2 packages Ghirardelli 60% milk chocolate

Equipment

1. Flour sifter
2. Sheet tray
3. Plastic wrap
4. Stand mixer with paddle attachment
5. Rubber spatula
6. Nonstick pan
7. Scale
8. Coffee Filters
9. Teaspoon, Tablespoon, Fork

1. Place a coffee filter or bowl onto a scale and zero it
2. Weigh 190g of all purpose flour and 127g of bread flour into separate coffee filters. Weighing them individually protects the precise protein ratio to create a chewy tender texture.
3. Sift both flours into a single bowl. This adds air to the mixture and prevents large clumps
4. Whisk in 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of espresso powder, and 1 teaspoon of sea salt.
5. Mix thoroughly with a fork to equally distribute the leaveners and seasonings

Brown butter adds a rich nutty aroma and deep flavorful texture to the ordinary chocolate chip cookie. We will be preparing the brown butter in two phases, in its solid and liquid form.

1. Over low heat melt 1 1/2 sticks (170g) unsalted butter in a nonstick pan. Using a light-colored pan is ideal because it helps you monitor the milk solids as the change color.
2. Stir the butter continuously as it bubbles and changes color. Watch for the milk solids at the bottom to transition to a deep hazelnut brown.
3. As soon as the butter reaches a rich amber brown remove it IMMEDIATELY from the heat. Transfer into a room temperature heat-proof container to stop it from overcooking and burning.
4. Scrape the pan with a rubber spatula to transfer all of the brown milk solids into the bowl. The toasted milk solids are the essential flavor bombs responsible for the cookie's deep toasty profile.
5. Let the brown butter to cool to room temperature, it takes around 30 minutes. The color should pale and consistency should slightly thicken. It will loosen when we emulsify it with the shortening later steps.

Next we will toast dry milk to deepen the flavor of the brown butter:

1. Pour a few tablespoons worth of dry milk powder into a nonstick pan set on low heat.
2. Watch carefully and stir the powder without stopping. Dry milk contains a large amount of lactose which makes it prone to burning if you leave it in one place for to long.
3. After 4-5 minutes, the milk powder will deepen in color to a golden-tan. The different amount of toasting creates layered flavors of toffee and butterscotch.
4. After this color is reached transfer IMMEDIATELY into a separate cooled container.

1. Weigh 57g of vegetable shortening into your stand mixer's bowl. Attach a paddle and whip on speed 3 until smooth.
2. Fix the paddle attachment to the stand mixer
3. Capture all of the milk solids when drizzling in the brown butter scraping the sides of the bowl as shortening clings to the side during the process.
4. Gradually incorporate the 100g of granulated sugar, then 200g of brown sugar a few grams at a time. Make sure to break up the clumps of brown sugar prevent damaging your mixer. The batter should be aerated, light brown and slightly grainy.

Now our dough should finally take shape. Incorporating the dry ingredients will add structure and density to our cookie. Each type of flour has a different percentage of protein which influences the texture and chewiness of the baked cookie. Mixing in the flour develops the stretchy gluten network that acts as a "flavor saver" to trap in the aromatic liquids that we've added previously.

1. Add 2 large eggs and 1 egg yolk one at a time into the mixer. Each egg should be fully incorporated before adding the next one. Blending each egg into the batter evenly emulsifies it which leads to a better final texture.
2. Decrease the mixer speed to 2. Gradually pour in the sifted flour mixture. Mix only until a few streaks of flour remains. Over-mixing will toughen the gluten network and lead to a bready dough.
3. Drop in your hand-chopped chopped chocolate, on speed setting 1. Fold in the remaining bits of chocolate by hand to distribute the chocolate evenly.

This is where the magic happens. When we allow the dough to rest in the fridge, we hydrate the flour network with the aromatic liquids and fat. Skipping this step would create a flat greasy mess. By allowing the flavors to develop for 72 hours we ensure a thick fudgy cookie that is able to hold the rich flavors we spent so much time creating.

1. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate anywhere between 24 and 72 hours. The longer you wait, the longer the brown butter, sugars and chocolate absorb into the flour.

1. Line a pan with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350F
2. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut into a 4 x 4 grid for large cookies. For standard-sized cookies, cut the dough into a 5x5 grid
3. Arrange the cubes of dough onto the baking sheet and leave 2-3 inches of space in between each cookie. Bake for 14-16 minutes
4. Carefully lift the parchment from the hot pan onto a cool surface
5. Cool to desired temperature although the cookies are best eaten when centers are still warm and fudgy.

Storage Instructions

If you aren't ready to bake the entire batch, wrap the dough tightly in plastic:

1. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 5 days
2. Store in an airtight container for up to 6 weeks.