Crispy edges and chewy middles.
Toasty brown butter, two kinds of dark chocolate, raw cane sugar…
A little extra special.
I took the last chocolate chip cookie recipe from Not Without Salt, browned the butter, and ever so slightly decreased the sugar for one crowd pleasing chocolate chip cookie, which I brought to my friend Lily’s backyard wedding.
We watched tadpoles sunning themselves on the flat rocks in the pond before the ceremony. I hugged people I hadn’t seen in more than a decade, and Laura and I snuck into the big house to show the boys every nook we used to play in. That was our childhood playground.
Meanwhile I carried around a paper bag with my biggest tupperware filled to the brim with these chocolate chip cookies. Mark and I had eaten a bunch that morning, freshly baked, and again at lunch with my parents, but right before the reception, he said, “Can I have another one? I need to make sure they’re still good.” HA.
Browned butter in an enameled cast iron pan will make your kitchen, your hands, and your dress smell like toasted hazelnuts.
Lily made her own tiered maple cake frosted with maple buttercream and tiny blue flowers. Perfectly New Englandy and very Lily. We feasted on Rhode Island clamcakes, fat, meaty mussels, raw oysters, thirty chickens raised just for the wedding, steelhead trout, ginger bourbon cocktails, soft pretzels and beer in mason jars, wedding cake, and a full dessert buffet of raspberry oat bars, baklava, and cookies, including these.
We left after a night of polka dancing and lighting marshmallows on fire in the bonfire pit with my empty tupperware.
On the way to our cars, Laura said, “I had several of your cookies. They were so chewy in the middle, and I know that’s hard to do unless you bake them two hours before the wedding.”
I asked my dad if these were better than the cookies he buys from Stop & Shop. He said something along the lines of “Are you kidding, there’s no comparison. These aren’t too sweet either.”
I made 48 cookies and they all got eaten.
Ingredients
Directions
- Set a bowl next to the stove. Melt one stick of butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking and stirring until the butter gets frothy and brown specks begin to appear. Remove from heat and immediately pour into the bowl to stop the cooking process. Stir one tablespoon of water into the brown butter. Let it cool for 10 minutes on the counter, then in the fridge for another 10 minutes until it's solid but still soft.
- Cream both butters with both sugars until light and fluffy, then mix in the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla, scraping down the sides to incorporate evenly.
- In a separate bowl, whisk flour with baking soda and salt, then add to the creamed mixture until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Using a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop mounds of cookie dough onto a tray, cover with plastic wrap, and chill overnight in the fridge.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 360°F. Line an airbake cookie sheet with parchment paper and place the cookie dough balls 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Let them warm up a little on the counter as the oven is preheating, about 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle tiny pinches of sea salt or Himalayan pink salt over the cookie dough, then bake for 10 minutes.
- Take the cookies out of the oven but keep them on the baking sheet until cooled. They should be lightly golden around the edges but underbaked in the center. The puffy centers will deflate as the cookies cool and result in chewy insides.
- Once fully cooled, store in an airtight container.
Notes
Adapted from Not Without Salt's "the last chocolate chip cookie"
4 comments
those look amazing! well done
Thank you Lindsay! I’m working on a gluten-free version too. I’ll have to try yours out 😀
These look perfect and totally to die for! Pinning 🙂
Thanks Medha!