this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Mildly Interesting
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Forget this guide because their control recipe is less than perfect. This recipe is perfect. Fight me. I didn't perfect it, America's Test Kitchen did. Kudos to them.
I call this recipe perfect, not only because it makes the exact kind of cookie I crave, but because it can go from stored ingredients to finished cookie in the time it takes to prepare (without the hassle of softening butter) and it will make your house smell heavenly the entire time.
Buy good (and fresh) ingredients, you can't make perfect cookies with rubbish ingredients.
Perfect Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
INGREDIENTS
PREPARATION Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large (18- by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.
Heat 10 tablespoons (140g) butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl.
Stir remaining 4 tablespoons butter into hot butter until completely melted. Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using), giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.
Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tablespoons (or use #24 cookie scoop). Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet. (Smaller baking sheets can be used, but will require 3 batches.)
Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies the edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking.
Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.
Give these cookies away. Seriously, they are too delicious. Your waistline and your neighbors will thank you. Just don't give any cookies to the ignorant fucks whining about units. They got the conversion all wrong anyway.
I hear that people like US recipes because they don't use exact metrics and instead use spoons and cups and those are supposedly easier to scale. In baking I absolutely hate that. Give me metric units. I have no problems scaling those up or down as required. What's a cup? I have .2 liter cups and .4 liter. How the fuck is that supposed to be easier? And what's up with tablespoons of butter? Depending on how much you put on a spoon that can easily mean double/half as much butter. With grams and liters there is no doubt and no second-guessing.
A cup in US Customary is 237 ml (often rounded to 240 ml). Americans don't exist in a world where they have to play "is this cup US Customary or different measure also calling itself a cup measure?" as all their measuring cups are going to be in US Customary. Butter usually comes in quarter pound sticks with teaspoon (4.9 ml) and tablespoon (14.8 ml) measures printed on the wrapper so you can just cut a hunk of the appropriate volume from the stick and if you were using a measuring spoon to measure butter you'd use a level measure to create consistency and not just let it heap up.
Note: I prefer weighing ingredients and in metric at that. I'm just answering your questions.
Cool, thank you! How much would be a tablespoon of butter in grams? Like 25g or 50g?
1 tablespoon of butter is ~14 g. For a more complete conversion (with respect to butter): 1 stick = 0.5 cup = 8 tablespoons = 24 teaspoons = 113 g.
Thank you again!
You're welcome. A nice resource for a bunch of other ingredients for baking is this one from King Arthur Flour.
Weighing ingredients is so much better. I can cook significantly faster when I don't have to measure volumetrically, plus recipes scale so much more easily. If I want to make 3.134 of a recipe, weight is the way to go.
Oh, I agree. If I use a recipe regularly I'll often convert it or if I'm creating one from scratch I'll usually just have everything by weight from get go.
P.S. Nothing makes me annoyed at a recipe faster than seeing something like 2.5 cups of chopped broccoli.