2010 January 16 | dinner with Julie

Archive for January 16th, 2010

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last night called out for chocolate chip cookies. Yelled, actually. (And whimpered for wine.)

A meeting with my designer friend over the look and layout of the Blog Aid cookbook ran into dinnertime, and when my sister got home she whipped up nachos for us all, made a little more square by the addition of beans and halved kiwis to scoop out with small spoons. We hammered away on the project for a bit, put the boys in the bath (here’s an idea: fill the tub with water and plenty of bubble bath, toss in your old junk jewelry and let them search for treasure at the bottom of the ocean. If you can come up with a small “treasure chest”, all the better) and set to the task of reclaiming the basement, which you may (or may not) recall was turned upside down when we replaced the furnace and subsequently had to replace a corner of the floor that turned out to contain asbestos. Since then it has been off limits, the ankle-deep pile of stuff that was once neatly moved out of the way rising slowly to knee-deep.

So Mike installed shelving and we started shuffling things around, designating some for the Sally Ann and others for recycling. And then someone suggested cookies. (OK, it was me.) The memory of browned butter shortbread made me think that perhaps chocolate chip cookies could be improved upon by the browning of the butter first too, and so I tried it; melted the butter and then kept on cooking until it was a nutty brown, proceeded with the cookie dough and then chilled it to restore its shape, lest we wind up with chocolate chip pancakes. The dough was fantastic – nutty and caramelly with the browned butter, but much like the maple in those Maple Walnut White Chocolate Chip Cookies, the flavour wasn’t nearly as intense once the dough was baked. Still, they were wonderfully chewy and dense, with crisp edges; all the things I want my chocolate chip cookies to be. And still half the fat of the ones made from the recipe on the back of the Chipits bag.

I brought them downstairs and balanced them on the only relatively clear horizontal surface we had – the top of the water heater. But even then it was at a harsh angle; like a game of cookie Jenga, we took them off either side alternately to keep the rack from tipping over into the pile of dust on the floor. My sister suggested I get a shot that included the background.

(I swear I’m not a candidate for Hoarders – it’s just that the contents of the basement have been collectively shoved to one side, and the order of the resulting pile has disintegrated over the course of December and January…)

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2-3/4 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour (or half all-purpose, half whole wheat)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1-2 cups chocolate chips

In a small saucepan, heat the butter over medium-high heat until melted. Keep cooking, swirling the pot occasionally, until it starts to turn brown and smell nutty. Remove it from the heat, pour it into a bowl (scrape out all the nice browned bits at the bottom) and stir in the sugars. This should cool it down somewhat, but wait a few minutes anyway before stirring in the eggs and vanilla. Then add the flour, baking soda and salt and stir with a spatula until almost blended; add the chocolate chips and stir until the dough comes together. Refrigerate for at least an hour or two, or overnight.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F. Scoop out walnut-sized balls of dough and space them an inch or two apart on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray or lined with parchment or a silpat mat. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until golden around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 2 dozen cookies.

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