Every few years (sometimes it feels like every year), a new “Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe!” is introduced. For a while, it was the NYT Chocolate Chip Cookie. Which, yes, is very good. Now, it appears to be the Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie. Frankly, they’re all probably great. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to be looking for to deems something the greatest anymore. Especially when it’s all personal preference – chewy vs crunchy, milk vs dark chocolate, small vs large, chocolate ratios, etc. What truly makes a cookie so much better than another that it must be deemed the greatest ever. Must everything be given an accolade? Is that the only thing that can grasp our every-shortening attention spans? It feels like a symptom of TikTok culture and the speed of trends nowadays that everybody needs to try the latest “viral” recipe and add their voice to the abyss to say whether they think it’s the best or not.
All this to say: I’m over it. I don’t like trends, I don’t like viral things, I do not care about anyone’s opinion except for… those of basically anyone reading this blog. I am over all the noise!! No one has ever heard my screams into the abyss, why do I have to listen to theirs?!
Now, rant aside, I do think it would be fun to have my own special chocolate chip cookie recipe. Since everyone has their own favorite chocolate chip cookie, it seems like something that it would be good to have a sort of personal flair recipe for. A recipe with a real actual secret ingredient, to stand out from all the same-ness. So then when you make them for people, they can actually remember yours versus someone else’s.
I found during my UX program that people were easily wow-ed by browned butter, and it’s a very easy way to elevate something simple. And since I’m on a kick experimenting with buttermilk powder, I figured I’d try adding buttermilk powder to the brown butter to increase the browned butter effect. Naturally, I turned to Joy the Baker’s “best” brown butter chocolate chip cookies recipe.
And yet, I am immediately falling susceptible to a trend!! Adding milk powder to browned butter is, unfortunately, something that’s been espoused on the internet as the next “hack” we all need to try. That’s probably already over and done with! King Arthur Flour wrote about it at length here. It’s meant to add more milk solids to the butter, to allow for more milk solids to be browned and give it that brown butter flavor. Naturally, I wondered how buttermilk powder would taste. Since buttermilk is traditionally the stuff that’s leftover from churning butter… does adding it back into the butter do anything weird in the browning process? Or is it just like adding the milk solids?
These questions justified my exploration of an otherwise fad trend that I was just espousing that I hated. It’s all in the name of experimentation. So I can then shout in to my own void to tell people whether it’s worth it or not!
The result of browning the buttermilk solids and the butter was a lot thicker and a bit lumpy, and it was a lot… more brown. It looked less like melted butter with a few brown specks, and more like a melted brown substance. I can tell I’m… really describing this well. The result in the cookie was that it was definitely a very strong brown butter taste!
It’s hard to say that it’s that much more brown butter taste to be able to justify purchasing milk powder. But if you have it on hand… no harm in adding it and boosting the flavor up!
My conclusion is that… it’s impossible to rank something like a chocolate chip cookie. And maybe the best way to make them taste truly great is to spend a little extra time on them, and add some ingredients to make them exciting. Brown the butter, add milk powder if you can. Add some cinnamon. Switch out the chocolate chips. Go crazy!
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Adapted from Joy the Baker
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, divided
- 2 tablespoons milk powder (or buttermilk powder)
- 1 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 3/4 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 heaping cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
Instructions
- Place half the butter (8 tablespoons) in a medium skillet. Melt the butter over medium heat, swirling it in the pan occasionally. It’ll foam and froth as it cooks, and start to crackle and pop. Once the crackling stops, add in the milk powder, and then keep a close eye on the melted butter, continuing to swirl the pan often. The butter will start to smell nutty, and brown bits will form in the bottom. Once the bits (both the butter solids and milk powder) are amber brown (about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes or so after the sizzling stops), remove the butter from the burner and immediately pour it into a small bowl, bits and all. This will stop the butter from cooking and burning. Allow it to cool until absolutely room temperature. Speed this step up in the refrigerator, but don’t ignore this step.
- In a medium bowl combine softened butter, room temperature browned butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Using an electric hand mixer, beat on medium speed until well incorporated, lightened in color, and fluffy – 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add the egg and yolk plus the vanilla extract and beat on low speed for 1 minute, until well incorporated.
- In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt to incorporate the leavening evenly through the flour.
- Add the dry ingredients all at once to the butter and sugar mixture and beat on low speed or incorporate with a wooden spoon or spatula until no dry patches remain. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- I find it easier to portion out the cookies before refrigerating them, so roll dough into ~2 1/2 tablespoon balls, and store either in a Tupperware separated by parchment, or place them on a baking sheet and cover them with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for one hour, or overnight. Or until you’re ready to bake them.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place dough balls about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake one cookie sheet at a time for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.
- Allow to cool on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire to cool further before storing.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for as long as they last.