Dark, dramatically delicious cookies with shards of roughly chopped dark chocolate, brown butter, and a generous pinch of sea salt — the grown-up, deeply flavoured version of the chocolate chip cookie.
About This Recipe
If the classic chocolate chip cookie is the approachable, crowd-pleasing version, the brown butter chocolate chunk cookie is its more sophisticated sibling — darker in colour, more complex in flavour, and made with roughly chopped dark chocolate bars rather than chips so that the chocolate is uneven, with some pieces melting into dark ribbons through the dough and others remaining as distinct, snappable chunks.
Browning the butter is the transformation that makes this cookie what it is. The milk solids in the butter caramelise during cooking, producing dozens of new flavour compounds — nutty, caramel-like, slightly savoury — that make the finished cookie taste considerably more complex than its ingredients suggest. The brown butter is combined with predominantly brown sugar, which contains molasses and contributes its own deep, slightly earthy sweetness that reinforces the nuttiness of the butter.
Choosing a good quality dark chocolate bar and chopping it yourself rather than using chips is worth the extra two minutes. Chips contain stabilisers that prevent them from fully melting. A chopped bar produces irregular pieces that melt at different rates in the oven — some creating glossy pools of chocolate, others remaining as visible shards. The visual and textural result is dramatically more interesting, and the flavour of a good dark chocolate bar is consistently superior to that of a bag of chips.
History & Origins
The brown butter chocolate chunk cookie emerged as a distinct recipe category in American food blogging in the 2010s, when home bakers began systematically testing the effect of brown butter on standard cookie recipes and documenting the results. The technique of browning butter for baked goods has much older roots in French pastry, where beurre noisette has been used in financiers, madeleines, and tarts for centuries. Its specific application to American-style drop cookies is a more recent innovation that has become one of the most widely adopted cookie improvements in the home baking community.
Why It’s Easy To Make
Same pantry ingredients as a classic chocolate chip cookie with one extra technique step. Widely reproducible with any good dark chocolate.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Course: Baking, Cookies18
servings20
minutes10
minutes2880
kcalIngredients
•t200g unsalted butter
•t220g brown sugar
•t80g white sugar
•t2 large eggs
•t1 tsp vanilla extract
•t260g plain flour
•t1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
•t1 tsp salt
•t250g dark chocolate (70%), roughly chopped
•tFlaky sea salt to finish
Directions
- Brown the butter in a saucepan over medium heat until golden and nutty-smelling. Cool for 15 minutes.
- Whisk both sugars into the cooled brown butter. Add eggs and vanilla. Whisk vigorously for 2 minutes.
- Fold in flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt until just combined.
- Fold in most of the chopped chocolate, reserving some pieces for the tops.
- Refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 180°C. Line trays with baking paper.
- Scoop into large balls. Press reserved chocolate pieces onto the tops.
- Bake for 10 to 11 minutes until edges are set and dark golden but centres look underdone.
- Sprinkle immediately with flaky sea salt. Cool on tray.
Notes
- The longer you chill the dough the better — overnight refrigeration produces a noticeably more complex, deeper flavoured cookie.
These spread less than standard chocolate chip cookies due to the browned butter — if you want more spread, bake at 175°C.
Press extra chocolate pieces on top of the dough balls just before baking for a visually dramatic result with visible pools of chocolate.
70% dark chocolate provides the best balance of bitter and sweet. Anything below 60% is too sweet for this recipe
Make Ahead Tips
Dough keeps refrigerated for up to 4 days or frozen as balls for 3 months. The flavour continues to develop in the fridge — 3 day chilled dough produces the best cookies. Baked cookies keep at room temperature for 4 days.
Storage & Serving
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. These are particularly good slightly warm — reheat in a microwave for 15 seconds to soften the chocolate. Freeze baked cookies for 3 months. These are one of the most impressive cookies to bring to gatherings and are best presented in a simple stack with the chocolate visible from the side.
Variations & Substitutions
Use a mixture of dark and milk chocolate for a less intense, more crowd-pleasing version. Add a tablespoon of espresso powder to the dough to amplify the chocolate flavour. Sprinkle with a little smoked sea salt instead of regular flaky salt for a subtle smoky note. Add 80g of toasted hazelnuts alongside the chocolate for a Ferrero Rocher-inspired version.
