Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie
Excuse me while I do my brown butter dance. Okay, now we can talk.
A giant brown butter chocolate chip cookie? Baked in a skillet? That you can scoop mounds of ice cream on top of and drizzle chocolate syrup over and dig into with a spoon? GIMEEEEEE RIGHT NOW.
Remember the best chocolate chip cookies ever I posted like nine months ago? You know, one of my favorite recipes ever? Well, this skillet cookie is a spin-0ff of that recipe. It's every bit as incredible and amazing and unbelievably delicious, but some tweaks were made to the recipe to transform it into a skillet cookie recipe.
I can write pages and pages on the virtues of this cookie recipe. Which I kind of already did when I posted those original brown butter chocolate chip cookies.
But don't worry - I won't do it again. I won't bore you with all the details on what goes into these cookies and how I developed the recipe and how each ingredient plays a vital role in creating this cookie, the world's best chocolate chip cookie. I won't. But I really, really want to.
Just know that a lot of work went into the creation of this recipe and that it's near and dear to my heart. And that it's the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever.
But would you at least let me just summarize the virtues of this cookie for you though? Thank you, you are far too kind.
Here's the summary: This brown butter chocolate chip skillet cookie is soft and rich and dense and chewy. It has caramel and butterscotch undertones from the brown butter. It's packed with chunks of melting, oozing dark chocolate as well as creamy, sweet milk chocolate. Oh, and you know, it's super easy and quick to make too. But of course.
Short enough?
First you brown the butter. There's a video here if you want to know how that's done. Then you stir the sugars and wet ingredients with the butter. Next comes the dry. Then the two types of chocolate chunks. And you are done.
No need to chill the dough now. No need at all. Just spread the brown butter cookie dough right into the same skillet you used to brown your butter in. Don't clean out the skillet first. You want it greasy from the butter you just browned, because that means extra brown butter flavor and no extra greasing necessary.
Sprinkle some more chocolate chunks on top to enhance the cookie skillet's already considerable beauty. Add some flaky salt if you're into the sweet and salty cookie combo (please add salt PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE).
Place the pan into the oven and bake the cookie for approximately 15 minutes. You want it just golden on the edges but still nice and gooey and under baked in the center. Or at least that's how I want it. Gooey and melty and mushy and a little bit raw right there in the middle.
And now comes the most exciting part: the eating part!!!!!!!
Of course, you can wait 1o minutes for the cookie to firm up before slicing it and serving it all nicely and properly.
But you know what else you can do? You can NOT wait. (Not "cannot." "Can not." Separate words.) You can not let the skillet cool and firm up at all. You can scoop ice cream right on top of it while it's still in the skillet. You can grab a bunch of spoons from your drawer. You can hand the spoons out to all parties involved. And you can all dig right into the warm, gooey, delicious brown butter chocolate chip cookie with the cold, creamy ice cream on top of it while it's still hot and soft and un-firmed.
It's up to you. But the choice is clear.
You can see what my decision was from the photos above. Side note, I was the only party involved.
But then I became proper for half a minute and cut a nice, little slice out as can be seen below.
brown butter chocolate chip skillet cookie
Yield: 6-9" skillet cookie
7 tablespoons (3.5 oz) butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons plain greek yogurt
1 cup packed flour (about 5.3 oz)
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/3 cup milk chocolate, chopped
- Sea salt for sprinkling (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a light-colored (so you can observe the browning) oven-safe 6-9 inch skillet, brown the butter: chop up butter and place into skillet over a medium flame. First, the butter will melt. Once butter melts, it will foam and bubble. Make sure to stir the butter every few seconds with a rubber spatula. After a few minutes, the bubbling will subside and golden specks will appear on the bottom of the pan and the butter will start smelling nutty. This means your butter is browned! (Click here for a video tutorial on browning butter.)
Remove skillet from flame right away and pour the browned butter into a mixing bowl to stop the cooking. Make sure to scrape in all the browned specks from the bottom of the pan. Warning: Butter should have golden/amber specks, not completely brown ones. If the butter is too browned, your cookies may have a burnt/bitter taste.
Let butter cool five minutes in the bowl and then stir in both sugars and mix well.
Add in egg and vanilla extract and stir vigorously with your spatula until the mixture turns a lighter shade. Stir in the greek yogurt till fully incorporated.
Mix together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and stir into the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined. Fold in dark and milk chocolate chunks last.
Wrap a piece of foil around the handle of the skillet you used to brown the butter (so it doesn't get too hot to handle). Spread dough evenly into skillet with hands. Sprinkle some more chopped chocolate on top and some flaky salt if desired.
Bake cookie skillet for 14-22 minutes, or until edges are just golden but the center is still slightly gooey. The larger your skillet and the flatter your cookie, the less time it will take to bake.
Dig in right away with a spoon or wait about 10 minutes for cookie to harden slightly before slicing like a pie.
