Chocolate Chip Cookies

Start by cutting the stick of butter in half. With half of that butter, you will add it to a pan set on medium heat. The other half, place on a counter and allow it to become room temperature. 

You will now brown the butter. Watch the butter melt and begin to bubble. Stir the butter often to prevent the milk solids from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. After 5-7 minutes, when you stir the butter, the foam should start to turn brown or have brown streaks in it. This is how you know your butter is browning. Depending on the butter you use, you may have to pull the brown butter off the stove and let the bubbling settle to see if you have browned your butter enough. Typically the generic/ store brand butter foams a lot and will need to be pulled off to see the browned butter. Once brown, pull from the heat and set aside.

In a bowl or stand mixer, add ½ cup of white sugar and ¾ cup of brown sugar and mix until all is combined. 

Next add the two tablespoons of molasses. Mix that in well. In theory, this will make light brown sugar into dark brown sugar, however I find it creates a different texture to the cookie that I find more pleasant than using dark brown sugar. 

Next, add the remaining ½ stick of butter to the sugar and beat until the mixture is fluffy. 

In a separate bowl, crack 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk into a bowl with 2 teaspoons of vanilla bean paste, or extract. Then add the brown butter and mix all the wet together. 

Once the eggs are thoroughly mixed, add the wet ingredients to the fluffy sugar and butter mixture and combine them together. 

Option step: Add all dry ingredients, 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, and 2 cups of flour to a metal sieve and sift all the ingredients to get rid of any clumps. 

Take half of the dry mixture and add it to the wet ingredients and combine until just a little bit of flour is still visible. Then you will add the remaining dry ingredients and mix until barely combined.

Depending on the chocolate you use, you will cut up 3 4 ounce bars of chocolate or measure out 1 ½ cup of chocolate chips and add it to the mixture and fold the chocolate into the dough. In case you don’t know what folding means.. Or if you watch Schitts Creek, you just fold it in! Just mix it until the chocolate is combined in the dough. 

Next you will have an oven preheating to 375 F. 

On a sheet tray lined with parchment paper, take a handful of cookie dough, about half the size of a baseball, and form into a large disc shape. Or however you want to shape it, I just share what I did. You could also just use an ice cream scoop or cookie scoop and do that too. It’s what I normally do. 

Place the dough discs about 2-3 inches apart. For optimal cookies, place the cookie dough into the fridge for 45-60 minutes. 

Once the oven is preheated, add your cookies into the oven and let them bake for 15-17 minutes. For exact time measurements, I baked mine for 15 minutes and 45 seconds without opening the oven door. If you do open the oven door, it may take up to 17 minutes. 

Once out of the oven, add flaky salt, if you have it, to all the cookies. 

If you can resist, allow the cookies to cool for 30 minutes. However, if you’re like most people, try not to burn the roof of your mouth!