One of my favorite cooking youtube channels is Whats Eating Dan? from Americas Test Kitchen. I like his episode on chocolate chip cookies. I learned the chocolate chip (tollhouse) cookie was invented in Massachusetts.
Browning the butter involves heating up the butter in a skillet and releasing the liquid out of the butter as it bubbles. When the butter bubbles less and starts turning brown the skillet should be removed from heat. The brown butter adds a nice toffee flavor to the cookies.
The chewiness of the cookies comes from the 2/3 ratio of brown sugar to white sugar and perhaps using 1 egg white and 2 egg yokes. It seems like Cooks Illustrated recipes always use different number of white and yokes.
I like semisweet chocolate chunks rather than chips since they melt differently and are larger. I usually omit the nuts but walnuts or pecans can be nice. The size of the dough on the sheet perhaps makes a different. I have a largeish scooper of about 3 tablespoons making it easier to create cookies of the same size. I usually keep some of the chocolate chunks until the cookies are scooped onto the cookie sheet to press a few chips into cookies with less chocolate. I find putting the dough in the fridge for an hour or more makes the dough easier to scoop and work with as it becomes less sticky. Does not matter to use mixer or hand mix with a spatula.
It is difficult to remove the cookies from the oven at the right time. When the edges are starting to turn brown and center is almost set but looks a little underdone is a good time. The cookies will keep cooking after removing from oven. A little bit gooey in the middle is still nice. The cookies should be placed on wire racks. Before eating the cookies should be mostly cooled and feel mostly settled.
I really like the chewiness of this recipe and the toffee taste of the brown butter. I like to cook some of the cookies are freeze the rest after scooping. You can freeze the scoops on a cookie sheet then after about an hour when hardened can move the frozen scoops into a ziplock freezer bag. Then you can bake later right from the freezer and just add a few minutes to the baking time.
Ingredients
- 14 T unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)
- 8 3/4 oz all purpose flour (1 3/4 cups)
- 1/2 t baking soda
- 3 1/2 oz granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
- 5 1/4 oz brown sugar (3/4 cup)
- 1 t salt
- 2 t vanilla
- 2 eggs (1 egg + 1 yolk)
- 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks
Steps
- preheat oven to 375 F
- heat the butter in a saucepan
- butter will bubble as moisture evaporates, heat until starts turning brown, swirl or stir pan continually, should take 1 to 3 minutes
- add both sugars, salt, vanilla to bowl with butter, whisk a bit until cools a bit before adding eggs
- whisk in eggs until mixed 30s, let rest for 3m, repeat 2 more times (whisk 30s, rest 3m)
- whisk flour and baking soda in medium bowl
- mix sugar/butter mixture with flour mixture with wooden spoon until combined
- stir in chocolate chips
- scoop about 3T of dough into cookie sheet with parchment paper or silplat silicone mat
- bake cookies 1 tray at a time for about 10-14 minutes until the edges are starting to brown and the center is still soft
- can freeze any dough as 3T scoops and cook at a later time
- move the baked cookies to a wire rack and let mostly cool before eating
