- Recipes
- Desserts
- Cookies
Recipe Review
published Jul 6, 2021
comments
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
There are an infinite number of recipes for chocolate chip cookies, and, depending on your preferences, the best recipe will look different to everyone. My go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe is this brown butter spelt one; I love how thin and almost crackly the cookies turn out. But when I saw that Joy the Baker (one of my longtime favorite bloggers) posted the “legendary” recipe for her dad’s famous brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe, I knew I had to test it out. I mean, you don’t need to twist my arm to get me to bake a batch of cookies!
How to Make Joy the Baker’s Dad’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
The ingredients and method for this chocolate chip cookie are pretty in line with your typical recipe. The biggest difference between this recipe and the one you might find on the back of a Nestle Tollhouse bag is the addition of brown butter. To start, brown one stick of butter until foamy and nutty, then pour into a bowl and let it cool to room temperature as you soften another stick of butter. Once the brown butter has cooled, cream both butters with brown sugar and white sugar. Then, add an egg and an egg yolk along with some vanilla extract.
Separately, whisk the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt) and add to the dough all at once until incorporated. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips. The dough needs to sit covered in the fridge for at least an hour (although it could chill for longer). Then, roll the dough into 60-gram spheres (about 2 1/2 tablespoons) and bake on a parchment-lined sheet pan at 350°F for 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on a rack and enjoy.
Get the recipe: Dad’s Very Best Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
My Honest Review of Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
I mean, what kind of monster is going to pretend like a warm chocolate chip cookie laced with toasty brown butter is not their thing? If there is a person like this in your life, you should probably lose their number. These cookies were delicious. They were soft, cakey, and delightfully dense. Walk into a room with a warm platter of these precious babies and you will surely be the most popular person there.
Admittedly, because I’ve been so loyal to one chocolate chip cookie over the years, there were things about that recipe that I slightly missed — the sprinkling of flaky salt, the heft of chocolate chunks (as opposed to chips), the toastier notes of a darker, nuttier flour, and the subtle addition of instant espresso. Despite all of these absences, the shared (and arguably most important) ingredient between my go-to recipe and Joy’s recipe is brown butter.
I feel very strongly that if you’re going to make a chocolate chip cookie, you may as well take the extra 15 minutes to brown some butter. At this point, I have no desire to consume a brown butter-less cookie. Sue me — I am being a snobby consumer of chocolate chip cookies and I know it. Next time I’m craving a batch of cookies but don’t have all of my specialty ingredients on hand, this is definitely the cookie that I’ll be making.
The biggest difference between the cookie that I know and love versus Joy’s was the texture. The dough that I am used to making was not nearly as floury, dense, and almost crumbly as Joy’s. This higher ratio of flour to liquids made for a cakier, thicker cookie, as opposed to the thinner ones. Frankly, it was a nice change of programming for me, and I enjoyed the thicker cookie more than I thought I would. If you are strictly a thin, crackly cookie person, this might not be the one for you. As a lover of all different types of cookies, I was not mad at this one in the slightest.
My #1 Tip for Joy’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
The biggest chocolate chip cookie-related advice that I can give to anyone is double the batch. Always. Freezing cookie dough is the easiest and best thing that you can do for yourself. I sleep better knowing that I have little balls of cookie dough in the freezer and that at any given moment, I am a mere 20 minutes away from a freshly baked cookie. These cookies are a certified winner, so start browning that butter and don’t look back.
Filed in:
Cookie
Dessert
Recipe Review
