Brown Butter Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Regular pantry staples are elevated to another level to give this cookie a 'fancy with only a little more effort' vibe. Brown butter is stirred in with toasty muscovado sugar to form a perfect cookie dough, and then hard caramel shards and chocolate chunks are folded in to give the perfect amount of chocolate and caramel per bite. Finished with flaky sea salt, this is a super easy yet satisfying baking recipe.
Brown Butter Salted Caramel Cookies
Earlier this year, I spent a long time recipe testing to come up with what I consider to be my perfect chocolate chip cookie. I took a couple of different ‘fomocookie’ recipes, took what I liked from each, then tweaked and tweaked and tweaked until I found something that I considered to be perfect. I have since learnt, that while that one recipe IS perfect (to me, anyway), there are a whole bunch of iterations of chocolate chip cookies that are also perfect. Changing up the fats used (such as subbing olive oil), adding mix-ins, and browning the butter, along with playing around with the egg, sugar, flour and leavening agent ratios, all can give you variations on a perfect cookie. And today, I learnt that browning the butter, and stirring in chunks of salted caramel into a chocolate chunk filled cookie mixture, also yield a very, very perfect cookie.
I have teamed up with Sunspire and The Feedfeed to bring you this take on a classic chocolate chip cookie. I wanted something elevated, and a little fancy, but not something that required crazy ingredients that would leave you with a nearly full bag of something weird in your cupboard for the next year - the kind of fancy you could achieve with pantry staples. Like when you wear jeans around the house instead of yoga pants kind of fancy. You’ve made a little effort, but didn’t have to go out of your way to achieve it. Just me? Thought so.
I achieved this little bit of fancy by taking ingredients that are already in cookies, and elevating them slightly. I browned the butter, which adds a beautiful toasty note to the cookies, and complimented it with muscovado sugar in the dough. I then made a quick hard caramel, let it set, then bashed it up into chunks. The caramel chunks were stirred through the mixture, along with some Sunspire 44% Chocolate Chunks - the chocolate is beautiful and smooth, and one bag is the perfect size for a batch of cookies! The caramel is the ultimate bestie for the chocolate chunks - it is chewy and crunchy, adding texture alongside the smooth taste of the chocolate.
These cookies really don’t take a huge amount of extra work, but the few extra steps really do make a huge difference. I also did a bunch of tests and found that the dough can be baked off without a resting period, which means cookies in an instant. The best.
A few wee tips for Brown Butter Salted Caramel Cookies
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I have posted the recipe here in grams because that is how I tested it - lots of people don’t realise, but as little as 50g of flour makes a huge amount of difference when it comes to the texture of your cookie, so weighing your ingredients removes the margin of error that comes with measuring by volume. That, and there are far less dishes to do! I would rather you spend $10 on a scale than on ingredients for a cookie that didn’t work out because you didn’t measure your ingredients properly.
- You will see that there are two different weights of butter called for in the recipe - the starting weight of 225g, and the 175g of brown butter called for in the recipe. When you brown butter you cook off the water, so the starting weight and ending weight are different. The initial quantity of butter accounts for this moisture loss. Measure out 175g of the brown butter to use for your cookie recipe.
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Don’t be intimidated by the extra steps of browning the butter and making the caramel. They don’t add a huge amount more time, and you can make the caramel while the brown butter cools!
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I like to chop my chocolate so that you have both shards and chunks. You can also use a baking bar here and chop it roughly using a sharp knife (Sunspire also does a great one).
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This recipe does make quite a few cookies (never a bad thing), but if you would like to bake some later, you can roll the dough into balls, place on a lined sheet tray, then freeze until solid before transferring to an airtight bag in the freezer. Add a minute or two onto the bake time to account for the frozen dough.
Related Recipes:
- My Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie
- Brown Butter Salted Caramel Chocolate Ganache Tart
- Small Batch Double Chocolate, Olive Oil and Rye Cookies
- Brown Butter Spelt Chocolate Chip Cookies
Thank you so much to Sunspire and the Feedfeed for sponsoring this post! All opinions are my own.
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Brown Butter Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 30 cookies 1x
Description
Brown Butter Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Regular pantry staples are elevated to another level to give this cookie a 'fancy with only a little more effort' vibe. Brown butter is stirred in with toasty muscovado sugar to form a perfect cookie dough, and then hard caramel shards and chocolate chunks are folded in to give the perfect amount of chocolate and caramel per bite. Finished with flaky sea salt, this is a super easy yet satisfying baking recipe.
Ingredients
- 225g unsalted butter, straight from the fridge
- 200g granulated sugar (for the caramel)
- 150g muscovado sugar
- 60g dark brown sugar
- 100g granulated sugar
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 330g all-purpose flour
- ¾ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 255g (One Bag) Sunspire 44% chocolate chunks
- Flaky Sea Salt for Finishing
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350˚f / 180˚c. Line 3-4 baking trays with parchment paper.
- Place the butter in a medium saucepan, and place over medium heat. Cook until the butter has melted, and then continue to cook, swirling the pan often, until the butter foams and turns golden brown and nutty - this should take 3-4 minutes.
- Measure out 175g of the brown butter into the bowl of a stand mixer. Allow to cool slightly.
- While the butter is cooling, make the caramel - place the 200g granulated sugar into a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Place a silicone mat on a heat resistant surface (I use my counter) or onto a baking tray, and have nearby.
- Place the sugar in a medium saucepan, and place over medium heat. Heat the sugar, stirring occasionally with a whisk, until all of the sugar has melted (the sugar will clump as you heat, but continue to stir - it will soon smooth out). Continue to cook the caramel until it is amber in colour and just beginning to smoke slightly. Immediately pour onto the prepared silicone mat, and leave to cool while you prepare the cookie dough.
- Place the bowl of the stand mixer with the brown butter onto the mixer, and fit with the paddle attachment. Mix the brown butter, muscovado sugar, dark brown sugar, and second measure of granulated sugar on medium speed until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla, then increase the mixer speed to high and beat for 2-3 minutes, until the mixture has lightened in colour and thickened.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer off, add to the mixing bowl, then mix on low until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and finish the incorporation of the dry ingredients by hand if needed - scrape down the bowl and ensure that all the mixture at the bottom of the bowl is fully incorporated.
- Roughly chop half of the Sunspire chocolate chunks using a sharp knife to give some variation in chocolate size, and add to the mixing bowl along with the unchopped half. Carefully peel the caramel sheet off the silicone mat, and place onto the chopping board. Using a sharp knife, cut into chunks ½” to ¾” or smaller in size - there will be some small shards, and larger pieces.
- Use caution as the shards will be sharp. Add the caramel shards to the bowl along with the chocolate, and mix briefly to combine.
- Using a two tablespoon scoop, place level scoop fulls of dough onto the prepared baking trays - 8 per tray works well for me, but I like to start with 6 just to make sure there will be enough space. Roll each into a ball and arrange on the trays, leaving ample room for spreading.
- Bake the trays one at a time for 11-12 minutes, or until the cookies are puffed up and set around the edges. Remember that they will continue to cook a little once you remove them from the oven. If the cookies have lost their round shape a little in the oven due to the caramel, you can use a round cookie cutter slightly larger than the cookie to nudge it back into a circular shape.
- Sprinkle each cookie with coarse sea salt, then cool on the tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Repeat the baking process with the remaining cookies. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.
Keywords: salted caramel, chocolate chip cookie, hard caramel, chocolate chunk cookie, brown butter
These cookies take some time but they are REALLY good. I did not have muscovado sugar, so I used brown sugar and 3/4 tbs of Blackstrap molasses. I also do not have a kitchen scale (yet!) so I converted the quantities and it still turned out great! They taste like they are from an upscale bakery!
★★★★★
Hiiiii! I am so glad that you loved them! My fave brand of scale is Escali if you needed a recommendation! Thank you so much for the review xx
I am now ruined for all other cookies. These are so tasty and chewy and easy. Some people get put off by the many steps of browning butter and making caramel, but they are so simple to do! I can't find muscovado sugar near me, so I used brown and dark drown sugar and that still super delicious. I will find a propper baking store and get some one day and see the difference.
★★★★★
Ahhh I love this! Dark brown sugar works great in them! 🙂
*update* I have baked these about a dozen times now and everytime get great reviews, but I just got the best one yet. Someone told me they were the best cookie they had ever tried. They loved the way the carmel intercted with the rest of the cookie and they were phenomenal. So thank you Erin for shring such an amazing recipe!
If you have not made these cookies, do it. You will, not regret it! They are now one of my favorite cookies! I added a little bit of espresso powder to my browned butter and it just woke up the cookie as a whole. Very delicate and scrumptious. I will definitely recommend this recipe! Thank you!
★★★★★
Hi! Yayyyy so happy you love! Espresso powder and brown butter are truly best friends - I discovered it after I developed this recipe so I am so happy you added some! Just so, so good! Thank you for the lovely review!
I'm a pretty experienced baker and I haven't has issues with caramel in the past, but this burnt on me long before the sugar was even melted. I wish there has been more specific instructions for that section, because everything was shaping up so nicely.
★★★
Hi! So sorry it didn't work out for you - sometimes if your heat is too high then it will burn but the process is the same for making any dry caramel! I can update the instructions though to make sure this doesn't happen again - which part wasn't specific enough for you?
These cookies take some time to make, but they are REALLY good and very rich. I did not have a kitchen scale (I need one), and it still came out great with online conversions and some eyeballing. I also did not have muscovado sugar, so I used brown sugar and blackstrap molasses. I am excited to try out some other recipes from here!
★★★★★
Question I couldn’t find the moscuvado sugar, I have molasses do I just use the molasses and brown sugar or extra brown sugar and molasses.
Thanks so much
Going to make for thanksgiving
Hi! Just more brown sugar is fine! don't add any molasses 🙂
I bought muscovado sugar from Amazon. I’ve not made these yet, but so glad I have all the ingredients!
Yayyyy you're going to love!
This is a 5-star cookie. I took my time and substituted light brown sugar for muscavado. The only change I made to this recipe, aside from the sugar, is that I pressed dark choc chips after baking. Just makes them look yummier! Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe👍
★★★★★
Yay thank you so much for the review!
My go-to cookie recipe! Just so deliciously chewy and salty and chocolatey 😍
★★★★★
Yayyyy! 🙂
Hi Erin!
This recipe calls for 225g of butter, but you say to only put 175g in the mixing bowl - what do I do with the remaining 50g? Can’t find any instructions in the recipe, but might have missed something!
Hi! When you brown butter, you lose some of it as you are cooking off the water in the butter. So you start with 225g butter, then you end up with about 175g Brown butter to use in the recipe. The inital butter quantity in the recipe accounts for that loss in volume when browning. I hope that makes sense!
Just checked the post and I cover this in the notes section of the recipe too 🙂
Hi Erin. I am making dough ahead of time. Would it be possible to make dough, scoop the balls and freeze with this dough or does that get tricky with the caramel?
Thanks,
Hi! I haven't tried it but I thiiiiink it should be ok? 🙂
I've tried it, works great! I flatten the scoops slightly so I can just bake them from frozen, they take about a minute or two longer.
Yayyy thank you so much! This is so helpful!
These cookies are fantastic. Flagging this now so I remember next time, but I think I'll test out light muscovado sugar instead of dark to lighten the appearance of the cookie. Mine came out much darker, I think this was why. I made a quick decision between the two at the market, but will know for next time. I loved receiving your email newsletter--I left Instagram earlier this year to get away from it all, so I appreciate seeing your recipes in my inbox! I hope Pocket is well 🙂
★★★★★
Hiii! Yay yes! You could use dark brown sugar too if you wanted - it's basically a more chill version of muscovado! So glad you love the emails! x
I thought toffee should be made with butter and light brown sugar.This looks marvellous made with just granulated sugar ... can you please explain ?
Hi, toffee generally is made with butter and sugar. This is a hard caramel not a toffee so the recipe is a bit different 🙂
These are my FAVORITE cookies! I make a huge batch all the time and freeze them. My husband and I eat a few whenever we want something sweet, I give them to friends, I make a bunch to take to my family... they are always a hit. I love that the recipe is in grams - I like to get things exact and measuring in weight makes a difference! I learned a lot from the notes as well. Thanks Erin for this wonderful recipe, and all the time and effort you put into creating it and sharing it.
★★★★★
Aw yayyyy we love them too! There's a brown butter small batch situation coming this way very soon too! x
hi! super excited to try these out... i have a few questions!
it’s my first time making caramel and i was wondering roughly how long the sugar should be on the heat! i don’t want to burn anything! also wondering if i should use chocolate chunks or a chopped bar? thanks so much!!
NEW FAVORITE COOKIES!! thank you so much for sharing this recipe! it’s absolutely amazing! these were so delicious!! the caramel & brown butter really made them next level! your detailed instructions were so helpful! i will definitely be making them again soon!!
★★★★★
These cookies are delicious!!!!! such an amazing base that would work well with so many different mix-ins. Breaking the caramel was satisfying, it looked like abstract art at the end aha. Family and friends enjoyed them, I will definitely be making them again!
★★★★★
Yay so happy you loved them! Thank you so much for the lovely review!