Soft Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

We have a treat today – soft, chewy, chocolate chip cookies infused with the nutty notes of brown butter.  These cookies are great for satisfying a sweet tooth, and at only 16 mg of sodium per cookie, it’s perfectly fine that you can’t eat just one.  

Wanna know something about me? I love to bake.  I love baking sweets (cookies in particular) even more than I love cooking savory foods.  I have this terrible (or spectacular!) habit of baking an obscene number of Christmas cookies each year.  We are talking dozens upon dozens of cookies.   I have reigned myself in a bit in recent years, but I still love having all-out baking weekends and sharing my treats with whoever will accept.

So it is only natural that I post some cookies here, and why not start with a classic?  To get back some of the flavor that we lose by omitting the salt, we will use one of my favorites – brown butter.  And if you haven’t used brown butter before, you are missing out.  It is easy to make and has really great flavor.  You can eat it with savory foods (pasta, rice, sauces, potatoes, or vegetables).  Or you can use it to step up the flavors in sweet foods like cookies, frosting, and pancakes.

To make brown butter, start with some butter in a skillet or saucepan.  It is easiest to use a light-colored pan so that you can monitor the color of the butter.  As the butter heats it will melt, then it will begin to foam.  The color will go from yellow and opaque to clear and light brown.  You will see the milk solids settle at the bottom of the pan. They will become dark quickly, so stir frequently and remove the brown butter from the pan immediately to avoid burning the butter.

Place the hot butter into a bowl with an ice-cube and whisk it until the ice melts. This will serve two purposes – it will cool the butter a bit and will add back some of the water that was lost in the heating process.

From there, you will let the butter cool and then mix up the cookies much like you would mix up any other amazing, chewy, delicious chocolate chip cookie.

Oh and I prefer my cookies to be puffy. If you like your cookies to spread out a bit more, omit some of the flour. I have not tested them with less flour, but if I were aiming for thinner cookies, I would use a cup and a half of flour (a 1/4 cup less than the recipe calls for).

Soft Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Low sodium chocolate chip cookies with the nutty flavor of brown butter.

SODIUM COUNT: 16 mg per cookie; 909 mg in the whole batch.

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hour
• Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
• Yield: 28 servings (2 cookies per serving) 1x

Ingredients

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Brown Butter

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 ice cube

Dry Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups bread flour ((bread flour helps make the cookies soft and chewy))
• 1 1/2 tsp sodium-free baking powder
• 1/2 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix ((makes cookies soft and adds flavor))

All the rest

• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1 (12 oz) package dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup walnuts (chopped (optional))

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Instructions

For the Brown Butter

1. Place the butter in a saucepan or skillet and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Continue to stir the butter periodically as it heats. 
2. When the butter becomes a golden brown and smells nutty, remove from heat. Immediately place the butter into a medium bowl and whisk in the ice cube. 
3. Put the browned butter in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes, or until the butter has cooled completely.

For the Cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
3. Mix the eggs and white sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until they become pale and creamy (about 3-5 minutes).
4. Stir the vanilla, brown sugar, and cooled brown butter into the egg mixture.  
5. Stir the flour mixture to the egg mixture, then fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

6. Use a cookie scoop or spoon to create cookies that are one tablespoon each. Place them on a cookie sheet about 2-3 inches apart. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-11 minutes. 

Notes

Want fresh baked cookies every day for a few days? Refrigerate the dough and bake the cookies when you want them. The dough will keep in the fridge for about 3 days.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION Yield: 28 servings (each serving is two cookies)
Sodium: 32.5 mg, Calories: 204.5, Total Fat: 11.9 g, Saturated Fat: 4.4 g, Cholesterol: 22.1 mg, Carbohydrates: 23.2 g, Fiber: 0.8 g, Sugar: 15.0 g, Protein: 2.1 g.