The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Author: Delphine Fortin
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cooling Time (brown butter): 1 hour
Cook Time: 8 mins
Total Time: 1 hour 28 minutes
Yield: 12-14 cookies 1x
Category: Cookies

The BEST chocolate chip cookies are soft, buttery, with a slightly puffy, inflated texture, and oozing with melted chocolate puddles.

Ingredients

Scale

⅔ cup (160g) unsalted butter, diced
1 ¼ cup (150g) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup (135g) light brown sugar
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
1 large egg
7 ounces (200g) dark chocolate, roughly chopped*
½ teaspoon coarse salt

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Instructions

Start with the brown butter. Place diced butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, swirling the pan from time to time (do not stir). Once melted, it will foam up and then subside, and the milk solids will begin to separate, creating brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Swirl the pan regularly, until the butter turns a dark caramel color and a nutty aroma. Remove from the heat and pour into a glass measuring jar. Cool to room temperature, seal, then cool in the refrigerator for 1 hour, until almost completely softened.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk the flour, baking soda and baking powder in a medium bowl.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the softened brown butter and sugars for at least 2 minutes, until pale and fluffy, using an electric hand mixer. Add the egg, vanilla extract, and mix until combined.
Switch to a rubber spatula and add the dry ingredients to the bowl in two or three addition, mixing well. Fold in the chocolate chunks*, and mix until evenly distributed.
Using an ice cream scoop, scoop large balls of cookie dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Place a chocolate fève* on top, flatten slightly, and sprinkle with sea salt. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, up to 1 hour.
Transfer the cookies onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving enough space between each of to allow spreading, and bake for about 8 minutes, or until slightly under-baked**. Bang the baking sheet onto the counter a few times to create some texture at the surface, and use a round cookie cutter slightly larger than the cookie to scoot them into a perfectly round shape. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, and transfer the cookies to a cooling rack, or eat them immediately while still warm and oozing with chocolate.

Notes

* Important note about the chocolate. Use high quality dark baking chocolate, and chop it roughly into larger and smaller chocolate chunks, adding the chocolate scrapes to the cookie dough too. To get these large pools of melted puddles of chocolate in your cookies, I recommend keeping 12 larger pieces of dark chocolate to place on top of each cookie dough right before baking. Or better, use chocolate fèves (I use Valrhona Caraïbe 66% cocoa fèves, available to order online on Amazon or other online stores). These are the best: they melt more easily when warmed, and translate into melt-in-your-mouth chocolate pools and melted puddles.

** Important note about baking. Each oven is different so may need to adjust the baking time a little bit. When in doubt, always remove your cookies when still slightly under-baked, they will continue to bake on the hot baking sheet when out from the oven. I also often decrease the baking time a little bit for the following batches of cookies, keeping in mind the oven (and baking sheet if re-using the same) is already very warm.