Brown Butter Double Chocolate Cookies

With rainy cold weather, who doesn’t want a warm gooey chocolate chocolate chip cookie?  What takes this cookie to the next level is the addition of brown butter.  Browning the butter brings out the chocolate and also adds a caramel-y nutty flavor.

Before I explain what brown butter is, you need to know what’s in butter.  Isn’t funny how you can use an everyday food item and not know exactly what it’s made of?  Unsalted butter is made of butterfat, water and milk solids.  80% butterfat, 16% water and 4% milk solids to be exact.  Butterfat is the natural fat found in butter.  Milk solids are made of sugar, proteins and minerals; they give butter its rich taste.

To make brown butter, you need a stove, a saucepan and of course butter.  Add the butter to the saucepan and turn the heat to medium-low.  The butter will melt and the magic begins.  As butter melts, the butterfat and the milk solids separate that’s why you’ll see white floating on top of the melted butter, that’s the milk solids.  Those milk solids will sink and brown as the butter cooks.  Be careful and whisk the butter as it foams and boils, it will go from perfectly caramel in color to burnt very fast!  Once the butter is browned, you can either strain it or just pour it into a bowl.  I personally believe that the point of brown butter is the browned milk solids and so I don’t strain my brown butter.

The delicious part, the recipe:

BROWN BUTTER DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES:

(Yield 22 cookies)

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Brown the butter: in a small saucepan add cubed cold butter.  Over medium-low heat melt the butter and occasionally whisk it.  Let the butter foam and boil until there are brown specks on the bottom of the pan.
   

   
3. Pour the butter into a bowl and place it in the fridge to chill (about an hour).
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the cold brown butter and sugars.  Cream butter and sugars together for 4 minutes.  (Yes use cold butter, the friction from the mixer will warm it up and after a few minutes of mixing it will be softened, trust me)
5. While mixing butter and sugars, in a separate medium bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and sea salt.  Whisk together and set aside.
6. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla to the butter.  Cream for another minute.
7.  Add half the dry ingredient into the mixer and stir until combined.  Mix in the other half of the dry ingredients.
8. Pour in the chocolate chips and mix until evenly dispersed.
9. Roll into evenly shaped balls and bake 10-12 minutes.

 

If you are like me and have little to no will power then take a bite of these warm gooey chocolatey cookies and pretend the weather isn’t so crappy(: