Salted Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Salted Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

By: Ashlyn Walters / Southern Hospitality Company

There are very few problems in life that can’t be made at least slightly better by showing up with homemade cookies.

These have become my current favorite for exactly that. I’ve made them a handful of times now, usually to take to someone as a thank you for putting up with me, and a four-ounce cookie tucked into a little bag with a ribbon and a tag has a way of looking like a much more impressive gift than the amount of effort it takes to put together.

It probably helps that I own a company that sells personalized tags…. And you would think that means I always have a beautiful stack of them printed with my own name, ready to tie onto whatever I’ve decided to bake that day. Naturally, I do not. The cobbler’s children have no shoes and apparently the paper shop owner has no stationery. Although this is still better than my usual solution, which is pulling a sample tag from the shop with someone else’s name on it, crossing out Deborah Jones with a Sharpie and writing Ashlyn Walters underneath. My neighbors get a kick out of it. Nothing says thoughtful homemade gift quite like someone else’s name crossed out on the tag.

But back to the reason we’re here: the cookies.

They’re brown butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and they are enormous. Each one starts with a full four ounces of dough.

Before you decide that’s ridiculous and make them smaller, don’t. Make them at four ounces once and then we can discuss it. The size is part of what makes them so good. They bake up golden around the outside while the middle stays thick, soft and perfectly dense. If you’re so concerned about eating a four-ounce cookie, eat half. Problem solved.

And as much as I love an unnecessarily large cookie, the browned butter is really the star of the show. It gives them this deep, nutty, almost caramelized flavor that makes regular melted butter feel like it didn’t even try. Add the oats, big pieces of semisweet chocolate and a generous sprinkle of Maldon while they’re still warm, and this has quickly become one of those recipes I know I’ll make over and over again.

So we’re going to make the cookies, but I’m also going to show you all the little things that make them better: exactly how to brown the butter without burning it, why there are three different leavening-ish ingredients in the flour, how I get that bakery-style size and texture, and, naturally, how I package them when I’m giving them away.

Because apparently I can’t just hand someone a cookie.

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, browned and cooled

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (homeade recipe here)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 1/3 cups old-fashioned oats, divided

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Maldon flaky sea salt, for finishing

Our favorite packaging, gift tags & ribbon pictured are linked at the bottom of this post

First, Let’s Talk About Brown Butter

If you’ve never browned butter before, don’t let it intimidate you. You’re simply cooking butter long enough for the water to evaporate and the milk solids to toast. Those little toasted milk solids are where all that incredible flavor comes from. Regular melted butter tastes like butter. Browned butter becomes nutty, toasted and almost caramel-like.

Put 1 cup unsalted butter in a light-colored stainless steel skillet or saucepan over medium heat. A light interior really does help here because you need to be able to see the color changing on the bottom of the pan.

The butter will go through a few very distinct stages:

First, it simply melts.
Then it will begin to bubble and foam as the water in the butter cooks off. Keep stirring or swirling the pan occasionally so the milk solids don’t sit in one place and burn.
As the foam begins to settle, pay attention. You’ll start seeing little golden flecks collecting on the bottom of the pan. Those are the milk solids beginning to toast.
This is where things happen quickly. Continue stirring and watch those flecks go from pale gold to a rich golden brown. You’ll also notice the smell change dramatically. It should smell nutty and toasted.

Don’t wait for the butter itself to become dark brown. You’re watching the milk solids. Once they’re beautifully toasted, remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour everything into a heat-safe bowl, including every last one of those brown bits. Those bits are the good stuff.

Need the browned butter to cool it quickly?

Normally, I let the browned butter sit until it has cooled to around room temperature and has begun to thicken slightly. If I’m in a hurry, I pour it into a metal bowl and set that bowl inside a larger bowl filled with ice sort of like a double boiler, but with ice. Whisk the butter gently as it cools. The metal conducts the cold quickly, so within a few minutes the butter will cool down and begin to thicken. You aren’t trying to make it hard again. You just don’t want screaming-hot liquid butter going into your cookie dough.

Want to add more milk solids?

For an even richer browned-butter flavor, you can experiment with adding a small splash of heavy cream to the butter as it melts. Cream contains additional milk solids, which can contribute more toasted dairy flavor as the butter browns. Just know that cream also introduces additional water, so expect more bubbling and give that moisture time to cook away. And be careful when adding any liquid around hot fat.

Instructions

Brown the butter (detailed directions above) and allow it to cool to around room temperature. It should no longer be hot and will ideally have started to thicken slightly.
Add the cooled browned butter, light brown sugar and granulated sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
Mix until the butter and sugars are thoroughly combined.
Add the whole egg, egg yolk and vanilla and mix again until incorporated.
In a separate bowl, whisk the cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder and salt into the flour. This distributes those small amounts evenly before they ever hit the cookie dough.
Add the flour mixture and about half of the oats to the mixer.
I will often add the chocolate chips at this point too. It means the mixer can distribute them while the flour is being incorporated rather than requiring another round of mixing afterward.
Mix on low just until the flour disappears. Once flour goes into cookie dough, more mixing is not better. Overmixing develops more gluten and can make your cookies tougher.
Remove the bowl from the mixer.
Add the remaining oats and fold them into the dough by hand with a spatula. I intentionally save some of the oats for this last step because I like being able to actually see them on the exterior of the finished cookies rather than having every oat completely incorporated into the dough.

Make Them BIG

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. I use parchment on my cookie sheets pretty much every single time I bake cookies. It has never let me down, so I’m not about to start questioning it now.

Portion the dough into 4-ounce balls. And I mean four ounces. This is where a kitchen scale is your friend.

I use my Jenaluca jumbo ice cream scoop for these. I have their extra-large scoop too, which is the size I reach for with most of my cookies, but the jumbo is what helps make these feel like a proper bakery cookie.

Don’t mash the dough into perfectly smooth balls. Leave them a little craggy and imperfect. Those ridges and exposed oats and chocolate become some of the best parts once they’re baked.

Heat the oven to 350°F.

Bake the 4-ounce cookies for approximately 16–18 minutes. If using a convection oven, start at the 10 minute mark and add time.

You’re looking for cookies that are set and beautifully golden around the outside while the centers still look soft. Remember that a cookie this large continues cooking from residual heat after it comes out of the oven.

As soon as they come out, sprinkle the tops with Maldon flaky sea salt. Do not skip this. The little hit of salt against the brown butter and semisweet chocolate is what pulls the whole thing together.

Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet before moving them. They’re big, they’re soft and they need a minute to get themselves together.