At first look and bite, people will be convinced these brown butter toffee cookies with chopped chocolate came from a bakery! Their pools of dark chocolate and chunks of milk chocolate and bits of toffee make them so intriguing on the outside. On the inside, nutty brown butter and toffee are combined with layers of sweet brown sugar and dark and milk chocolate! The delicious flavors are intensified and topped off with a hefty pinch of sea salt!

ABOUT BROWN BUTTER

Brown butter is butter that gets browned on the stove top before it’s used in a recipe. It adds a rich, nutty, didn’t know you needed it flavor to cookies. It adds such depth of flavor to these already yummy brown butter toffee cookies!

It sounds a bit complicated, but it only takes less than ten minutes to make. You can let it cool slightly while you gather and prepare the rest of the ingredients! For more of a tutorial, check out this video on How to Make Brown Butter from Sugar Spun Run.

HOW TO MAKE BROWN BUTTER

Chop or slice your butter and add it to a skillet over medium heat. It’s better to use a light colored skillet so that you can best see the color of the butter as it cooks. Stir occasionally at first.

After about a minute, the butter will have melted and will start to come to a boil and start to sputter! At this point, you’re going to want to stir it constantly.

You’ll be stirring the sputtering butter for 4-5 minutes. Turn the heat down if the sputtering gets a bit out of control during that time.

After the sputtering, you’ll notice the butter start to foam. Keep stirring and be watching for it to turn from pale to a light amber color. It will also develop a nutty smell. You’ll also notice some grainy milk solids have formed at the bottom of the pan. Stir over the heat for another 45 seconds to a minute.

Once your butter has turned to a light caramel color, pour it, along with all its flavorful bits, into a heat safe bowl to stop the cooking. Place the butter in the fridge for 15-30 minutes then proceed with the rest of the recipe.

PREPARING THE COOKIE DOUGH

DRY INGREDIENTS

Start by whisking together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set that aside and measure out your cup of toffee bits and chop your chocolate. The toffee, I should mention tastes so yummy with the nutty brown butter and molasses flavor of the brown sugar!

WHAT TYPE OF CHOCOLATE TO USE?

These cookies get the sweet creaminess of milk chocolate and the rich bitter bite of dark chocolate. I use 50 grams of each. If you prefer one over the other, you can do all milk or all dark.

CREAM THE BUTTER AND SUGAR

Now that you have your ingredients all prepped and ready, you’ll cream the butter and sugars with an electric mixer on medium speed for up to five minutes or until you see that it’s lightened in color.

I like to use dark brown sugar and some granulated sugar. The dark brown sugar helps the cookies get their nice chewy middles and adds a tasty molasses flavor! I prefer dark, but you can also use light brown sugar.

Next, add the egg and the yolks one at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go. Next, mix in the vanilla followed slowly adding the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined! Fold in the toffee bits followed by the chocolate.

Form the dough into balls of about two tablespoons. I use a cookie scoop to form these cookies and usually drop a piece or two of chocolate on the bottom of the scoop before filling the scoop with dough. When I turn it out on the baking sheet, I always get at least one good chunk of chocolate on top. Those big chunks of chocolate look so pretty once baked!

Place the balls at least three inches apart as they will flatten and spread. Bake 9-10 minutes. At the nine minute mark, you really want to watch them because they can crisp up pretty quickly after that. Pull them out of the oven when you see that the edges are beginning to turn golden brown.

Let them cool slightly on the cookie sheets. Sprinkle them as generously as you like with some flaky sea salt. This will add a nice little salty bite to the sweet cookies and intensifies the chocolate flavor! After about ten minutes, use a spatula to transfer them to baking sheets to cool completely.

There’s so much to love about these brown butter toffee cookies with chopped chocolate. Texture-wise, they’ve got crispy edges, buttery, chewy middles and lightly crunchy toffee bits. Flavor-wise they come at you with rich, nutty brown butter, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate, more chocolate and sea salt. Get ready to share and to get lots of requests to make them again!