Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies with Brown Butter

Made with brown butter and three different chocolates, these triple chocolate chip cookies are a perfectly soft and chewy cookie with crispy edges and just the right amount of sweetness.

Jump to:

• My chocolate chip cookie journey
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Variation: Cookie Bars
• Make ahead Instructions
• More cookie recipes
• Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

My chocolate chip cookie journey

I have a story for you today. A story about a cookie. No, not a cookie. THE cookie 🍪 My Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies. Cue the lights. [The lights dim.] Thank you.

Before I even started this recipe, I thought to myself: does the Interweb really need another chocolate chip cookie recipe? Was I bringing anything new to the table? Was there a unique spin or a new flavor combination that I felt the world needed to hear about? Can a chocolate chip cookie even be perfect?

Here’s the thing: The only chocolate chip cookie experiences I’d had as a child were store-bought, and, no offense to cookie manufacturers, I hated them. They were too hard, too crunchy, and too sugary. Thus, I found a goal for my chocolate chip cookie recipe development: I needed to figure out how to make a cookie that I loved, one that was the polar opposite of those store-bought cookies.

I wanted a crispy edge, but a chewy middle. One that held together when it went for a swim in milk, but fell apart when I took a bite. Not too sweet and just a little bit salty. So, I got to work. And I did it.

Okay, you can turn the lights up again.

Ingredients

• Brown Butter I like to use brown butter in these cookies for a rich, nutty, almost caramel-like flavor. Browning the butter is an easy process and I walk you through. I recommend making the butter the day before and allowing it to solidify again, at room temperature, or you can place it in the refrigerator to harden up a bit while you do other cookie stuff.
• Softened Butter In addition to the brown butter, I like to use softened butter. Using brown butter certainly brings a delightful flavor to these cookies, but they are, at their heart, a chocolate chip cookie. I don't want to overpower the flavor of the chocolate with too much of the brown butter flavor. It's there to enhance, not dominate.
• Flour This recipe uses a combination of all-purpose flour and cake flour, which makes for a light and fluffy cookie that won’t fall apart easily (good news for you dunkers). If you don’t have cake flour, you can simply use another 195 grams (1½ cups) of all-purpose flour.
• Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate. I use three different types of chocolate, which results in a multi-layered, dang-this-is-amazing, chocolate chip cookie experience that will make your mouth sooo happy. I only had one cup of semisweet chocolate chips when I started the recipe, but I had a bar of dark chocolate and a bar of bittersweet chocolate. I just chopped them up and added them in. Milk chocolate would also be great.
• Sugar I use brown sugar for a chewier cookie and white granulated sugar for those amazing crispy edges. I also like to toss in ¼ cup of turbinado sugar, also called raw sugar. I learned this from my friend Erin, and her cookies are amazing!
• Vanilla You can use vanilla bean paste or extract. I like the bold vanilla flavor and the flecks of vanilla that you get with the paste, but if you don’t have it, don’t let it stop you from making cookies. Use what you have.

Instructions

• Brown one stick of butter It's easier than you think. Melt butter, over medium heat, in a light colored pan. It will start to foam. Swirl the pan, so you can see past the foam and so the butter keeps moving. Watch for lightly browned specks to form on the bottom of the pan. The butter will start to smell nutty and take on an amber color. Pour into a bowl to stop the cooking. Let cool in fridge until semi hard, stirring occasionally, or leave on counter overnight and bake cookies bright and early in the morning!
• Creaming butter and sugar Cream the brown butter, along with a stick of regular softened butter, with the sugars, salt, and vanilla.
• Add eggs Add your eggs one at a time, making sure the first one is fully incorporated before adding the next one.
• All together now Add the dry ingredients, a bit at a time, to avoid a flour shower 💨
• Chunk it Stir in the chocolate chunks and chips. I prefer to use a combination of dark or bittersweet chocolate, semisweet chocolate, and milk chocolate or chocolate chips. As long as it adds up to 340 grams (12 oz), you're good to go. I like to hold back a bit of each chocolate to press into the tops of the cookies before baking, to get chocolate puddles on top. Not required, but highly recommended.
• Scoop Use a small scoop (about 2 tablespoons) to place cookie balls on a parchment paper lined large sheet pan. I generally do two rows of four on each side and three in the center row to give them room to grow, so eleven cookies per batch. I'm a control freak though.
• Bake Bake your cookies at 350°F for 11-13 minutes, depending on how you like your cookies. 11 minutes gives you soft chewy cookies. 13 minutes gives you a bit of crunch on the edges. I'm a 12 minute girl myself.

Variation: Cookie Bars

As much as I love a cookie, sometimes I can't be bothered to scoop and go back and forth to the oven every 10 minutes. On those days, I make cookie bars.

To turn these into Triple Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, leave the brown butter in it's melted state. Beat along with the softened butter and the sugars. Spread finished dough into a 13X9 inch pan that you have lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 350°F for 23 to 25 minutes, or until top is light golden brown and slightly firm to the touch. If you want the chewiest cookie bars, don't overbake. Cool to room temperature, remove from the pan, and cut into pieces.

Make ahead Instructions

Dough balls can be frozen for an emergency cookie stash. Just put scoops of cookie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet and place in the freezer. When they are frozen, pop the dough balls in a zip top bag for cookie emergencies. When needed, bake as directed, adding 2-5 minutes to the baking time.

More cookie recipes

• Peanut Butter Chopped Chocolate Cookies
• Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Cookies
• Birthday Cake Cookies
• Maple Molasses Cookies

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