Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Possibly the most flavorful chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted. The combination of the nutty brown butter, the rich sweetness of the dark brown sugar, and the caramel-y toffee is INSANELY good.
Texture: These cookies are big, thick, chewy, ooey, and gooey. Seriously perfect.
Ease: More involved than your standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. There’s the browning of the butter and letting the dough chill for at least 24 hours.
Pros: Fantastic chocolate chip cookies that your family and friends will adore.
Cons: A little extra work involved, but I promise it’s completely worthwhile.
Would I make this again? Oh yes. I always keep a steady supply of these cookies in my freezer!
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These Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies are about to be the BEST cookies you’ve ever tried.
This Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe has gone completely viral. It’s been featured on Good Morning America, and TikTok videos of people making this recipe have gotten millions of views.
I originally published this recipe in 2014 but just had to update it with recipe improvements and new photos. These cookies deserved it!
In fact, my recipe photographer Ashley, who shot all 50 recipes in my cookie cookbook, said this may just be my BEST COOKIE RECIPE yet. People have been known to fight over these cookies. Yes, they’re that good.
This Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is kind of a mouthful to say. But when you actually have a mouthful of one of these cookies, I think you’re going to love me.
These are one of the most flavorful chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted, and the texture is absolutely perfect. You NEED to try this recipe. If your friends and family are anything like mine, they plead and beg you to make it again and again.
Yes, this recipe is a little extra work. But the best things in life usually are.
You may even want to make a double batch so you have plenty of dough to freeze when the craving hits. Trust me… it WILL hit!
How to Make Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to Brown Butter:
- Use a stainless steel sauté pan for best results.
- Nonstick prevents the butter from browning completely and prevents you from being able to visually see how browned it’s getting. Same with the dark color of cast iron.
- Something with a wider surface area, like a sauté pan over a saucepan, encourages browning more quickly.
- Don’t step away from butter that’s browning after it’s melted. It can go from browned to burnt quickly.
- At the same time, don’t be afraid of letting that color develop. It should become a rich and fragrant amber.
- Scrape all the brown bits into the mixing bowl – that’s where the flavor lives!
- I highly recommend using unsalted butter – learn why here.
- Learn all my tips and tricks for browning butter in my How to Brown Butter article here.
Do I Really Need to Use Bread Flour?
You don’t absolutely have to use bread flour, but it adds a ton of chewy texture to these Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies that’s worth the extra trip to the store. If you don’t have bread flour, then use a total of 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour in the recipe. Make sure to weigh your flour accurately. If you add too much flour, your cookies may end up dry, dense, or crumbly and barely spread.
Granulated Sugar + Dark Brown Sugar
- To make these Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies extra delicious, we’re using a combination of granulated white sugar and dark brown sugar.
- This combination brings sweetness, a fantastic texture, and a butterscotch flavor that’s so rich and delicious.
- The molasses in the brown sugar draws in more moisture, making the cookies thicker, softer, and chewier.
- You can use light brown sugar instead, but you may lose some of the additional flavor.
- Whatever you do, don’t lower the sugar in this recipe. Find out why here.
Eggs + an Extra Yolk
Eggs are essential to forming a beautifully pliable dough and cookies that stay soft for days – and we’re adding an extra yolk for extra richness and added chewiness. Eggs should be at room temperature when beginning your dough, but separate the one yolk from its white while cold for best results (yolks are more fragile and tend to break more easily when warmer).
Why is There Espresso Powder in This Recipe?
I really like the way the bitter espresso plays off the sweetness of the toffee and the nuttiness of the browned butter. It’s totally optional, if you don’t have it or don’t want to use it, feel free to simply omit it.
What Kind of Chocolate for Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I like to use semisweet Ghirardelli baking bars and chop them up coarsely for this recipe. Feel free to use chocolate chips, but note that you won’t have the same delicious marbled result you get from chopping your own chocolate.
Where to Find Toffee Bits?
You can find them at many grocery stores in the Heath brand with the other chips in the baking aisle. If you can’t find them, I have a super easy recipe to DIY Homemade Toffee Bits which I used for these cookies here. It takes just 15 minutes and tastes so much better than store-bought!
Do I Really Have to Chill the Cookie Dough?
I know, it’s annoying, but I promise you it’s SO worth it, especially for this recipe which uses melted brown butter. Both the taste and texture of the cookie improve during this time. Think of it as a marinating time where everything just gets better and better!! Freezing does not work the same as chilling, so there are no shortcuts here. Learn more about this process, and why it’s so important, in this article here.
Can I Make Smaller Cookies?
Yes, though I much prefer the crisp edges, chewy texture, and soft center 3-tablespoon-sized Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. If you want to bake smaller cookies, scoop into 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized balls and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
Portioning the Cookie Dough Before vs. After Chilling
- I recommend following the directions in the recipe for chilling the dough in one big mass, and then portioning the dough because it prevents the dough from drying out while chilling.
- However, if you’re finding it too challenging to scoop the Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookie dough at this point, feel free to scoop before chilling.
- There’s a bit more risk that your dough will dry out in the fridge this way, so just be sure to store the cookie dough balls in an airtight container or good quality ziptop bag, to prevent them from drying out.
- Then simply bake the pre-portioned Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies straight from the fridge after the 24-72 hour chill time!
Can I Freeze This Cookie Dough?
Yes! Freeze the portioned Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookie dough balls after letting the dough marinate in the fridge for at least 24 hours. Place dough balls on a baking sheet and freeze until solid. Remove frozen balls of dough to an airtight container and store for up to 6 weeks. Click here for my full guide on how to freeze and bake frozen dough.
Tessa’s Favorite Tools for This Recipe
- Large 3-tablespoon size cookie scoop for that bakery-style texture
- Or use a medium 1.5-tablespoon size cookie scoop and bake only for about 10-12 minutes instead
- Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Baker’s Half Sheet won our side-by-side comparison of the best baking pans
- 12″x16″ non-stick parchment paper for the best bake and easiest cleanup!
- The Ultimate Cookie Handbook: Your Guide to Baking Perfect Cookies Every Time by Tessa Arias
More Recipes You’ll Love:
- Toffee Brownies
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Brown Butter Dulce de Leche Cookie Cups
- S’mores Cookies
Visit my Cookie Headquarters for more recipes, tips, and insights into the science of cookie baking!
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Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter
- 1/2 (100 grams) cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup (200 grams) lightly packed dark brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (127 grams) bread flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder, optional
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 10 ounces (283 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 1 cup toffee bits,
homemade or Heath - Flaky sea salt, for finishing
Instructions
- In a medium stainless sauté pan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Swirling the pan occasionally, continue to cook the butter. It should become foamy with audible cracking and popping noises. Once the crackling becomes quieter, continue to swirl the pan or stir until the butter develops a nutty aroma and brown bits start to form at the bottom. Once the bits are amber in color, remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Be sure to keep the brown bits at the bottom of the pan as well, they hold so much flavor!
- Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar to the hot butter, stirring to combine. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, salt, espresso powder, and baking powder.
- To the cooled butter mixture, whisk in the eggs, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Gradually stir in the flour mixture with a rubber spatula. Stir in the chocolate chunks and toffee bits. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours.
- Let dough sit at room temperature just until it is soft enough to scoop, about 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a large cookie scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets. Dough may be slightly challenging to scoop.
- At this point, you can portion the dough, place it on a baking sheet, and freeze just until solid. Remove frozen balls of dough to an airtight container and store for up to 6 weeks.
- Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and sprinkle flaky sea salt on top of the cookies, if desired. Let cookies cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
This post was originally published in 2014 and updated with recipe improvements, more tips, and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
November 2022 Baking Challenge
This recipe was one of two November 2022 chocolate chip cookie selections for our monthly baking challenge! Every month you can join the challenge by baking the recipe and snapping a photo for a chance to win prizes! Learn more about my monthly baking challenges here. Check out everyone’s cookies:
What brand of bread flour do you use? Bread flours vary by brand in protein amounts.
Hi Alexis! They do, yes. We typically use King Arthur bread flour! Let us know what you think of these cookies once you have given them a try 🙂
Love these cookies! I’ve made them several times, and they’re always a hit. I have a question about the butter though. I use unsalted, but is it okay to use European style or should I stick with American? Thanks!
Hi Amy! Our forever recommendation is to use American-style butter when the butter isn’t the star ingredient, like in brownies, cookies, cupcakes, etc. Especially due to the rising cost of ingredients! If you’re making pastries, like pie dough or especially laminated pastries like croissants, higher fat butter contains less water so it’s more malleable even at the cold temperatures, which makes it more favorable for pastry products. I hope that helps! 🙂
These cookies taste amazing but mine came out completely flat. I weighed all of the ingredients. Any tips for next time around?
Sure! Melted butter is used in this recipe not only for the delicious nutty flavor of browned butter but for texture as well. It brings moisture to the flour, resulting in a dough that develops more gluten. If you baked one of the cookies immediately after mixing the dough, your cookies would have spread quite a bit in the oven due to the melted butter. This is why it’s so important to let the butter/sugar mixture cool completely to room temperature before adding the other ingredients. It’s also why we recommend chilling the dough as it not only helps to reduce spread by firming it up but also allows better absorption of the liquids by the flour, resulting in more flavor, color, and a slightly more substantial texture (aka crispy edges and soft and chewy centers for your cookies). Sometimes though, even if your butter mixture comes to room temp and you chill your dough, your cookies may be a little flat/misshapen after baking. Especially since this recipe contains toffee that melts in the oven (and firms upon cooling), you might just need to reshape the cookies after baking to perfect their shape! To learn more about this, you can check out Tessa’s how-to video here. I hope this helps!
Is there any reason I can’t cut the chilled dough with a knife rather than scoop? About 50 grams a cookie and so much easier.
Hi Susan! That should work just fine if that’s your preferred method. The cookies may look a little different from those pictured, but they should work fine and taste great 🙂
Wonderful recipe! I make these all the time for get-togethers. However, I made one mistake making these this time around- the bread flour! Its already been in the fridge chilling for almost 24 hours and I currently only have 1 1/2 cups of flour in the dough. Will this drastically impact my cookies??
Hi Eloise! Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that you missed adding some of the flour! Unfortunately yes, this will impact the cookies drastically and will likely cause them to spread out a lot more than normal while baking. Since it’s now too late to add the additional flour, I recommend one of two options:
1. Bake as normal, spacing the cookies much further apart than usual, to account for the extra spreading. Then, right out of the oven, use a round cookie or biscuit cutter that’s slightly larger than the size of your cookies, and swirl the cookie cutter in circles around the cookie edges a few times. This not only ensures your cookies are perfectly round, but also pulls the edges in, so you can sort of counteract the overspreading. Here’s a link to the reel on our Instagram, where we shared this fun cookie hack awhile ago
2. Use a round or square cake pan lined with parchment paper or foil, and press the dough into the bottom of the pan, and bake until set and golden brown at the edge. Use this Cookie Cake recipe as a guide.
I hope this helps! Your cookies still may not look right and the texture will be off, but they should still be delicious! Let us know how it goes 🙂
Thanks for the recipe. How do you get the toffee under control while baking?
Roundness notwithstanding(unevenly round cookies don’t bother me that much), cookies I bake with my homemade toffee tend to fall apart as the melting toffee pushes them apart, smears on the bottom and hardens, or pours off the side to make unsightly little hard pools on the edge of the cookies.
Should I swallow my pride and buy the store-bought stuff, containing additives that prevent it from going liquid? Or is there a way to manage toffee melt with the homemade stuff?
Hi there! We have not experienced separation or the other issues you mentioned when using Tessa’s Toffee Bits recipe in these cookies, so perhaps give that recipe try? I personally think it’s SO much better than storebought toffee bits, so I highly recommend it! You mentioned the imperfect shapes of these cookies don’t bother you, but just in case you want to make them look perfect, here’s how:
– Using a round cookie or biscuit cutter that’s slightly larger than the size of your cookies, and swirl the cookie cutter in circles around the cookie edges a few times. Make sure you do this straight out of the oven (before they have a chance to set up). This makes the cookies perfectly round! Here’s a link to the reel on our Instagram, where we shared this fun cookie hack a few months ago 🙂
I hope this helps, and I hope you’ll try Tessa’s toffee in these cookies – it’s seriously so amazing! Happy baking 🙂
Great recipe! How do you get the cookies so perfectly round? Even when I use a scoop they are not that round. And they also seem to spread more than yours. Any tips for that? Thank you!!
Hi Liz! Tessa has a great hack for ensuring perfectly round cookies: using a round cookie or biscuit cutter that’s slightly larger than the size of your cookies, swirl the cookie cutter in circles around the cookie edges a few times. Make sure you do this straight out of the oven (before they have a chance to set up). Here’s a link to the reel on our Instagram, where we shared this fun cookie hack a few months ago. As for the spreading, there are a few reasons why this could be happening. Are you chilling your dough for at least 24 hours prior to baking? Learn why this is important in the Tip Box (above the recipe) under the heading ‘Do I Really Have to Chill the Cookie Dough?’ Also, I recommend trying bleached all-purpose flour in addition to the bread flour in this recipe – both can help create a thicker cookie. You can also try adding an additional tablespoon or two of flour to the dough, for slightly thicker cookies. Be sure to also check that your leavening agents are fresh – more on that here. If all else fails, the cookie cutter hack will not only make perfectly round cookies, but it will also pull the edges in a little more, so your cookies will be a bit thicker, so that will help, too! Happy baking 🙂
I forgot vanilla. How drastically will this impact the flavor
Hi Joey! The cookies will still turn out perfectly without the vanilla, but the flavor might just be a little more bland. I hope you’ll give these another try sometime with the vanilla! 🙂
My family and I love these cookies so much, I don’t ever want another type of chocolate chip cookie. Weighing EVERYTHING in grams and checking the temperature of the butter and making sure the eggs aren’t cold have been super-important. The biggest game changer was buying an oven thermometer, which made me see that my oven was heating to around 20 degrees cooler than what it was set for, and was affecting how my cookies turned out. Now that we’re at the correct temperature, the cookies are even better. Thank you!
How much should the brown butter weigh? My cookies don’t spread properly so I wanted to make sure I am using enough butter. I’ve gotten a scale to measure the flour so hopefully that will help!
Hi Bianca! It’s tough to give a measurement for butter once it’s been browned, as all butter brands contain slightly different levels of water content – as Tessa just found in an experiment she posted on our socials (watch the two experiment videos on Instagram here and here). Despite these differences in water contents, our team has made these cookies using several different brands of butter, all with fantastic results. Cookies that don’t spread are typically due to too much flour being added accidentally, so I bet your new kitchen scale will make a world of difference in these cookies! Let us know how it goes 🙂
Pleased to report my 3rd time trying this recipe (this time measuring flour with my scale instead of volume) and they turned out perfect!! Thanks so much!
Woohoooo!!! So excited to hear that, Bianca! I hope you enjoy your new kitchen scale – it’ll be your new best friend in the kitchen, promise 🙂
Can I drop the use of bread flour? What is the substitutes of it?
Hi Dana! Tessa talks about this in the pink tip box (above the recipe). Check out the answer to your question, along with countless other great baking tips for this recipe, there! Let us know what you think of these cookies once you give them a try! 🙂
Am I able to double or triple this recipe? Or should I do one batch at a time
Feel free to double or triple the recipe, Vanessa! Just be sure to scrape down the bottom and sides of your bowl thoroughly, to ensure everything is getting mixed in as it should. Let us know what you think of these cookies once you have given them a try 🙂