Brown-Butter Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies

As I was throwing a homemade, two-day rise, cacio e pepe-ish pizza into my oven tonight I realized that I have been going to very extreme lengths to avoid posting this recipe. First the holidays happened, then the post holiday come-down, then I was studying for (and passed!) my second CPA exam, then the post CPA exam come-down. While there were definitely some legit excuses in there, it’s very possible that I procrastinated for a month or more. Oops. All that being said i’m glad to finally be back in blog mode!

This recipe is nearly perfect. So close to perfect, at least in my eyes, that any more effort put into them would yield a less than perfect result because at that point you’ve worked too hard. Trust me, I have made them, eaten them, made them again, eaten them, gave them to friends, gave them to coworkers, done my best to avoid eating them, etc, etc. They’re so perfect that I need to ban myself from making them again until i’m doing 2-a-day workouts and can eat as many as I want.

The key to these beautiful little babies is the brown butter and the molasses. Yes, you could get away with using normal softened butter, and skipping the molasses, but both of these provide a depth of flavor thats hard to beat. That combined with dark chocolate chunks, a slightly crispy edge and a soft center and you’ll understand why I have no self control when they’re in the house.

Anyway, I imagine everyone reading this has had a nice chocolate chip cookie moment before, so you’ll pretty much know what you’re getting into. Try it out and let me know what you think! 😛

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Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp kosher salt (reduce to 3/4 tsp if using table salt)
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, 1 stick softened to room temp, 1 browned
2 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chopped dark chocolate bars (or 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips)

Directions
Melt 1 stick butter in a small saucepan over medium low heat. Cook, stirring often, until butter is golden brown. Allow to cool to almost room temperature. Slightly warm is fine, you just want to avoid completely melting the room temperature butter when combined.

Combine brown butter, softened butter, both sugars, molasses, and vanilla extract in bowl of stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl if using a hand mixer). Mix on gradually increasing speed until mixture is lighter in color and fluffy.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Add eggs, one at a time, to the butter mixture, beating until fully incorporated between additions.

Slowly mix in the flour mixture (I usually do it in 3 additions), until just barely combined, then fold in chocolate chips/chunks. At this point I cover and rest the dough for at least 2 hours in the fridge to help hydrate the flour and develop flavor, however, this can be skipped if you’re not feeling it and that just sounds like mad dumb to you.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and shape the cookie dough into 3 tbsp balls and arrange cookies, 6 at a time, on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes, or until lightly golden on the edges and centers are starting to set. Allow to rest for 2 minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack, then text me so I know when to come steal them.