There are so many flavors going on in these cookies: brown butter, coffee, pistachio, and chocolate. You’d think that’d be too many, right? Wrong. So wrong. Absolutely wrong. On a scale of 1 to wrong, that is wrong.
All four flavors in these brown butter coffee pistachio chocolate chip cookies combine together beautifully: the nuttiness of the brown butter, the bitterness of the coffee, the sweetness of the chocolate, the saltiness of the pistachios. It’s like a four-person family where everyone is totally unique, but all somehow related and they get along together like a well-oiled machine.
The brown butter and coffee, the base of the pistachio chocolate chip cookies (and the base of the family), are the mom and dad. They contrast because they’re a little sweet and a little bitter, but they perfectly compliment each other and combine together to make a unique flavor that is better than them as individual parts. Then the chocolate is the sweet, 6-year-old daughter that you can’t help but love, because it’s chocolate. And the pistachio is the eleven-year-old son, who’s a little salty, but begrudgingly loves his family.
It’s a metaphor. Or a simile. I think metaphor though.
I’m not a huge fan of metaphors and symbolism, because so rarely is it actually clear what the metaphor or symbolism is for, or if it’s even there at all. So I’ll be nicer than the normal writer and tell you what the point of the metaphor is: these pistachio chocolate chip cookies are delicious. DEE-licious. I loved them because the flavor combo is something I’ve never tried before (but totally want to try again) and that I was a little worried that it would end up being too much. Yes, it’s possible to have too many flavors going on at once, so it’s like a sensory over-load and you don’t know what to pay attention to.
But these are like a sensory over-load in a good way. That good way being the omg-I-need-another-or-maybe-two-these-are-so-good-I-can’t-even way.
-Audrey
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PinIngredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee granules, such as Folgers Instant Coffee or Taster’s Choice
- 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2–3/4 cup pistachios, shells removed
- 1 1/2 cups chocolate chunks
Instructions
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. The butter will begin to foam. Make sure you whisk consistently during this process. After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan; continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a bowl to prevent burning. Add coffee granules immediately and give it a stir. Set aside to cool for 5-10 minutes.
- With an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low-speed just until combined. Gently fold in the pistachios and chocolate chunks.
- Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for one hour or place in freezer for 20 minutes if you are super eager.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Once dough is chilled, measure out 2 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball and place on cookie sheet ensuring there is at least 2 inches apart on each cookie. Press down VERY slighly on top of the dough, unless you want fatter cookies then leave as is.
- Bake the cookies 10-13 minutes or until the edges of the cookies begin to turn golden brown. They will look a bit underdone in the middle, but will continue to cook once out of the oven. Cool the cookies on the sheets at least 2 minutes. Sprinkle with a little sea salt if desired. Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheets and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.