High Altitude Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These high altitude brown butter chocolate chip cookies are thick with crisp golden edges and chewy centers. They’re perfectly salted with the rich flavor of nutty brown butter and lots of chopped dark chocolate. Our freezer is pretty much always stocked with these cookies, because they’re just so good! As a bonus, I’ve also tested this recipe without eggs, and have included a variation in today’s post for eggless chocolate chip cookies that are just as delicious.

And if you’re looking for a really soft chocolate chip cookie that’s perfected for high altitude, I’d recommend my best high altitude chocolate chip cookies recipe.

Looking for more high altitude cookie recipes? You’ll love these big chocolate chip cookies for two, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate white chocolate chip cookies.

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Why You’ll Love These Cookies

Rich Flavor of Browned Butter. The flavor of the brown butter is rich, nutty and so much more buttery than butter that hasn’t been browned. It perfectly complements the dark chocolate.

Crispy and Chewy. These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are completely different from my original high altitude chocolate chip cookie recipe. They aren’t necessarily soft, but rather thick chewy cookies with crisp, crumbly edges. I can’t stop eating them. Try adding an extra egg yolk to the dough for a cookie that’s a bit softer and chewier.

Salty and Sweet. The addition of some espresso powder, as well as the bitterness of the dark chocolate balances the sweetness, and is perfectly enhanced by some flaky finishing salt.

High Altitude Tested. I develop and test every recipe on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet.

Eggless Variation. Whether you’re baking for someone who has an egg allergy or you’ve simply run out of eggs, I’ve tested these cookies with an easy substitution for the egg that makes a really wonderful batch of cookies.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

• Butter. I began developing this recipe with browned butter, because I absolutely love the nutty richness it adds to cookies. It’s so aromatic, light and fluffy when whipped with the sugar (and also makes fantastic buttercream).
• Sugar. Using both granulated sugar and a little brown sugar adds a richer, deeper flavor, than just the granulated sugar.
• Egg. Binds the dough together and gives it structure.
• Vanilla. Flavor.
• Flour. All-purpose flour gives the cookies structure and strength.
• Baking Soda. Leavening agent.
• Espresso Powder. The espresso powder nicely enhances the dark chocolate, but there’s a small enough amount added that the cookies don’t taste like coffee. This is completely optional, though.
• Salt. And the salt is an absolute must. I think that cookies should be noticeably salty, which is why I always sprinkle a little salt right on top of them, as well.
• Chocolate. For the chocolate, you can certainly use chocolate chips. I love the Kirkland (Costco) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips. They’re great quality, with minimal ingredients. But use dark, semi-sweet, milk – whatever your favorite is. With today’s recipe, though, I really love using good-quality chopped dark chocolate. I prefer Chocolove Dark Chocolate, which contains 55% cacao. The flavor is deep, rich and smooth, and it’s a chocolate that I love to use in baking. Chocolove also has such pretty wrappers on their chocolate bars, and I love pretty packaging. If you want more pools of dark chocolate on top of your cookies, save a few of the bigger pieces after chopping the chocolate and press those onto the tops of your cookie dough balls before chilling.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Instructions

Make and cool the brown butter.

• In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Continue to cook the butter, swirling occasionally, until the water evaporates, and the butter forms fragrant, nutty brown solids at the bottom of the pan.  Remove from the heat and immediately pour the hot butter into a bowl, scraping all the browned bits off the bottom of the saucepan with a spatula.
• Let the butter cool at room temperature for several hours, until it becomes somewhat solid again.  As the butter cools, it may not become firm enough to hold its shape (depending on how warm your kitchen is), and may remain a little soft and spreadable, but allow it to cool until it is no longer a liquid.

Make the cookie dough.

• In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cooled browned butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar for 5 minutes on medium speed, scraping the bowl occasionally, until very light and fluffy.  Gently mix in the egg and the vanilla.

• In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, espresso powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt and the chopped chocolate.  With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and mix just until combined, briefly increasing the speed to medium to incorporate all of the flour.

TIP: Before baking, the dough benefits from some time spent chilling first. The chill time does two things. It helps to prevent the cookies from spreading too much while baking, as well as to let the flavors mingle and intensify.  And just before baking, the cookie dough balls are frozen for a few minutes, which allows the edges to brown while the centers cook more slowly, resulting in a delightfully chewy cookie that’s completely wonderful.

Chill the dough.

• Use a cupcake/ice cream scoop to divide the dough into 17 portions, about 2 ounces each.  Shape the dough into balls, place in an airtight container, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 350 and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.  While the oven is preheating, place 8 balls of dough on a plate in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Bake.

• Place the frozen balls of dough on the baking sheet, spaced three inches apart.  Bake for about 13 minutes, until the edges are crisp and light golden brown, and the centers are gently puffed and look slightly underdone.  If your cookies didn’t spread quite enough, you can bang the pan on the counter several times to help them flatten and settle.
• Sprinkle the cookies with the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt.  Let cool on the pan for 1 minute, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  As the cookies cool, the soft centers will settle down a bit, leaving a lightly crisp edge around the cookies with chewy centers.

TIP: For perfectly round cookies, immediately after taking the pan out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter that’s larger than the circumference of the baked cookies, and “scoot” it around the hot cookies. This pulls in the uneven edges and makes beautifully round cookies. You have to do this quickly, before the cookie sets.

• Repeat the above steps to freeze and bake the other 9 balls of dough.
• When you take the cookies out of the oven, the edges are golden and crisp and the centers gently puffed. But as the cookies cool, the slightly under-baked centers settle a bit, leaving a soft chewy middle surrounded by faintly crisp edges.  These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are thick, just sweet enough with a good pinch of salt, and full of rich dark chocolate.

Recipe Variation: Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies

So can you make these brown butter chocolate chip cookies without eggs, and still get good results? Absolutely. The ingredient that I found works best to replace the egg is sour cream. Simply replace 1 large egg with 1/4 cup (2 ounces) of full fat sour cream, and follow the recipe as written.

You’ll love the way your cookies look and taste with the sour cream, and it’s interesting to compare the difference. As you can see in the next photo, my high altitude eggless chocolate chip cookies are more pale, which shouldn’t be surprising, since we use eggs as an egg wash to help promote browning on baked goods like pie crust and bread. So without the egg, there’s less browning and caramelization, but the structure of the cookie is just as sound. When they’re warm from the oven, the eggless cookies are also much softer than the ones made with an egg, although they may be a bit more crumbly a day or two later, since the egg helps keep the centers of the cookies chewy.

As the cookies cool, they also stay a little puffier, although that may not only be due to the use of sour cream instead of an egg, but could also possibly be attributed to my using chocolate chips instead of chopped chocolate in the test batch. As you know, chocolate chips hold their shape better than a bar of chocolate that’s been chopped. These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are fantastic either way!

Recipe Variation: Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just add 1 ounce freeze dried strawberries (roughly chopped) to the cookie dough when you add the chocolate chips/chopped chocolate. The freeze dried strawberries add pretty pink and red specks throughout the cookies, and a delicious tart and fruity flavor to complement the chocolate. Decorate the tops of the cookies with more freeze dried strawberries and chocolate chips for a lovely Valentine’s Day cookie.

Recipe Variation: Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pecans

I absolutely love chocolate chip cookies with pecans. The brown butter, the chocolate, the flaky salt – it all works beautifully with the nuttiness of the pecans. I mean, hello, brown butter pecan cookies! They’re simply delicious. For extra flavor, lightly toast the pecans first, before adding them to the cookie dough.

Just add 3/4 – 1 cup pecans (roughly chopped) to your cookie dough when you add the chocolate chips or chopped chocolate. You could also use walnuts instead of the pecans. And for a pretty finish, be sure to “decorate” your cookies while they’re hot from the oven by pressing a few more chocolate chips and pecan pieces into the cookies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I make these cookies if I don’t live at high altitude?

I develop all of my recipes for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you live at a lower altitude, you’ll likely need to make a few minor adjustments, such as reducing the flour a little. This article can provide guidance on specific adjustments.

Can I make this recipe without browning the butter first?

I suppose you can, but the browned butter adds the most incredible flavor. It also reduces the water content, which in turn, affects the structure of the cookies. If you skip the step of browning the butter, you may need to reduce the butter by 1-2 tablespoons.

What’s a good finishing salt to sprinkle on top of the cookies?

I love Maldon’s flaky sea salt.

Will this recipe work with chocolate chips instead of chopped chocolate?

This recipe works well with either chocolate chips or chopped chocolate.

Can I use yogurt instead of sour cream in the eggless cookies?

While I have only tested the eggless batch with sour cream, you can likely use unsweetened Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and achieve similar results.

How do you make your cookies so perfectly round?

Cookies are very rarely nice and round when they come out of the oven. They tend to spread a little unevenly and lopsided, especially when baking at high altitude. So for perfectly round cookies, immediately after taking the pan out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter that’s larger than the circumference of the baked cookies, and “scoot” it around the hot cookies. This pulls in the uneven edges and makes beautifully round cookies. You have to do this quickly and rather aggressively, before the cookie sets. Cookie scooting is very popular with baking bloggers and photographers, as the finished cookies look so much nicer than cookies that haven’t been scooted.

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