These brown butter cookies are incredible with chocolate chunks but they also make the tastiest way to use up any leftover salty snacks, chocolate and nuts.
If for some reason you are left with some random pieces of Easter (or other) chocolates, crisps, pretzels, nuts, biscuits or any other snacks which have gone stale or you no longer fancy eating, I've got the perfect recipe to give them a new life and make the most delicious cookies to rival any viral café ones! I call them Everything But The Kitchen Sink Brown Butter Cookies; or just The Ultimate Cookies for short. Sweet and salty with a caramel and nutty flavour, crispy exterior and lovely chewy middle.
Ingredients: (approx 18 cookies)
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
225g salted butter, browned and cooled
350g light brown sugar
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1 Tbs plain yogurt
150g dark chocolate chunks
100g random other bits or more ( I used 80g tortilla crisps, 70g caramel milk chocolate, 30g flaked almonds and a few scraps of smoked almonds and ready salted crisps)
Flaked sea salt
Method: (see photos and videos below)
Start by making the brown butter: put all the butter in a saucepan and melt on medium heat until it starts to foam and the middle of the foam starts to brown. Then immediately stop the cooking by plunging the base of the saucepan in some cold water. Transfer the browned butter into a bowl and leave to cool down.
Prepare all your inclusions: crush any salted crisps or biscuits with your hands, chop any chocolate roughly into chunks and thinly slice any nuts.
In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until they lighten in colour. Then, whisk in the egg and the yolk until combined, and finally add the yogurt in.
When the butter is at ambient temperature, add to the bowl and whisk in.
Weigh out the flour salt and bicarbonate together and then slowly add them into the wet mixture and fold in with a spatula making sure not to stir more than is necessary.
Add the inclusions and stir them in to distribute them evenly.
Leave the dough to firm up a bit in the fridge for 15 minutes then ball up into golf ball sizes. Store dough balls in the freezer until you are ready to eat them, if cooking all of them straight away, put them in the freezer for 30 minutes at least to firm up before cooking, this will help to get a perfect chewy centre.
Spread out the cookie dough balls on a baking sheet leaving plenty of space between them, then cook in a preheated oven at 180°C for 10 minutes.
If you want a perfectly round cookie, use a large cup or glass (bigger than the cookie) and place the rim over the cookie before moving it in circular motion. Sprinkle a bit of sea salt on top then leave for 5 minutes to set. Serve and enjoy while they are still warm.
Bon appétit!
Video:
More about this recipe:
I've tried and adjusted many cookie recipes through the years and I honestly think this is the best one ever. The brown butter gives the cookie an extra caramel and nutty note, the salt enhances the sweetness and flavour of the chocolate, and they come out with a crispy exterior and soft centre every time.
I'm not one to brag a lot, but when it comes to my cookies I feel it's justified.
In this recipe, I've used lots of inclusions that were lying around to give them a new life rather than throwing them away. I ended up with a mix of dark chocolate, almonds, milk chocolate and tortilla crisps which worked really really nicely. Any salted snacks make a great addition for that added salt and texture, crushed up biscoff biscuits or ginger biscuits would be nice too. But if you just fancy a simpler chocolate chip brown butter cookie, then I recommend using 190g dark chocolate (70% cocoa) + 60g milk chocolate for the perfect balance.
A few key parts to ensure success with these cookies:
use brown sugar
do not over-mix the dough once the flour has been added. Fold it in until combined and that's it otherwise the risk is that too much gluten is developed which will impact the structure and therefore texture of the final cookie
use some dark chocolate to balance out the sweetness and add either flaky sea salt or a salted inclusion to enhance the flavour of the cookie dough and chocolate
roughly chop a chocolate bar with a knife rather than using chocolate chips
if using unsalted butter, add a large pinch of salt to the dough
freeze the dough balls before cooking to ensure a chewy centre.
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