Melted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
I love chocolate chip cookies. I like to bake them, I like to eat them, I especially like to share them with someone I love.
I also must like to write about them given that there are already five recipes in our collection for chocolate chip cookies. I have shared a recipe for crispy chocolate chip cookies, chewy chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip cookie bars, a spring version using candy coated egg-shaped Easter chocolates, and a chocolate chip cookie bar that adds in candy pieces. The logical way to prove my love for them is to add another one, right?
Yet there’s a step in the process of making chocolate chip cookies that often trips me up and it’s managing the temperature of the butter. On a morning when I decide to make a batch of cookies, I usually forget to get the butter out of the refrigerator to warm up to room temperature. Hours later, I realize my mistake and resort to either trying to right my wrong using the microwave (often a failure) or by calling my stand mixer into duty to whip it into submission.
These efforts succeed about half of the time. The other half? Well, I either find myself needing to chill the dough for hours before baking or I end up with thin and crispy cookies even if that wasn’t what I intended to make. As I watch the cookies spread too thin on the baking sheet, the pure joy of baking a batch of cookies spreads equally thin.
These baking fails aren’t a tragedy. A chocolate chip cookie of any sort is okay in my book. The simple solution would be to set the butter out as soon as I think about making a batch of cookies. Yet, I am bound to get distracted at the sewing machine or computer and forget. Again.
So, I decided this week to set out with the goal of creating a me-proof chocolate chip cookie recipe. The idea was simple: create a recipe with the classic flavor of a chocolate chip cookie and a fix for my absentmindedness built right in. I also hoped that the time required to prep, mix, and bake these cookies would be short enough that they would be easy to make at a moment’s notice without any pre-planning or chilling necessary. I wanted to maximize the joy of making a batch of cookies for my family while also doing everything possible to ensure that the cookies would be scrumptious.
I started with the butter. What if I could take the importance of the temperature of the butter and have complete control over it? If I could, then making a batch of warm, homemade cookies could be an easy, all in one project. I could go from delicious idea to ingredient gathering to mixing and then baking in one fluid motion.
Traditional recipes call for room temperature butter to be creamed with sugar before the other ingredients are added. Yet butter can be fickle with regard to temperature and handling. If the butter is too cold, it doesn’t blend well with the sugar, creating a lumpy mixture with uneven distribution. If the butter it too soft, it creates a dough that may need to be chilled for hours before baking.
If the creaming is done perfectly, the whipping of the butter and sugar mixture will create tiny pockets of air in the dough which help to create a lighter cookie that resists overbaking thanks to the protection provided by the air pockets. If the butter is over creamed, or overwhipped during the creaming stage, the mixture can become grainy, and the cookies will tend to brown too quickly and create a very dense cookie because the air pockets have been beaten right out of the butter and sugar mixture before the cookies ever reach the oven.
I have read dozens of recipes with strategies for combating this issue. They require a lot of precision from checking the internal temperature to the sticks of butter to timing the mixing and weighing the creamed butter and sugar. They were more precision than I was looking for in a recipe that I wanted to be intentionally simple.
None of the methods are as easy as what I am about to propose. I’m going to ask you to melt the butter before adding it to the sugar. By melting the butter, you can easily combine the butter and sugars by hand or with a mixer in moments. The melted butter is easy to combine with the sugars without any need to worry about the temperature or the amount of mixing. It creates a silky-smooth mixture ready to accept the other ingredients with minimal effort.
In addition to the melted butter, I decided to alter two key ingredients of the classic chocolate chip cookie recipe to help create a soft and chewy interior. First, we’ll create a homemade pastry flour to substitute for the All-purpose flour. You can learn all about that in my original post. It’s a simple technique I use in nearly all of my baked goods other than breads and pizza. By replacing a bit of the flour with cornstarch, you can reduce the protein content and help to ensure a cookie with a tender crumb.
In addition to making a small change to the flour, I decided to use one whole egg and one egg yolk instead of the two whole eggs I usually add to a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. I hoped that the egg yolk would add richness and that it’s natural properties would also help to create a more tender cookie. Egg whites have a tendency to bake up a bit dry and crisp (think of a meringue) which was a texture I wanted to avoid with these cookies.
Problem solved, right? Well, sort of. Melting the butter does make it much easier to cream the butter and sugars. It certainly makes the act of creating the dough easier and more enjoyable for me. Yet it doesn’t solve the challenge of a soft dough that will spread too quickly on the baking sheet once it hits the heat of the oven.
Chilling the dough can help to combat that problem, but I rarely have the patience to chill freshly made cookie dough for hours, so a different solution would need to be imagined. What if I lowered the temperature of the oven to give the cookie dough a better chance to begin to set up before the heat of the oven encouraged it to spread out?
A subtle change in oven temperature made all the difference. The balls of cookie dough bake a bit longer than my other recipes, but they spread more gently as they bake. It creates a cookie with a delicate hint of crunch on the outside and a soft, chewy center. They bake up beautifully and consistently. These are just the sort of cookie I was hoping for.
These cookies exceeded my expectations and delighted my taste buds. My family gave them a resounding thumbs-up which was all the validation I needed to know that they could be my new favorite chocolate chip cookie to bake, serve, and enjoy with a cup of tea.
This recipe is going to come in handy on those days when I want to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies, but I don’t have time to chill the dough, or I haven’t pulled the butter from the refrigerator ahead of time. Now I can give myself permission to lose track of time at the sewing machine, with my knitting needles, or a great book without missing my window to bake up a batch of my favorite cookies for my family.
Knowing that I can melt the butter, mix up the dough by hand, and move directly on to baking up the cookies added a good measure of joy to this recipe for me. Maybe that’s why they taste so good. I hope that you’ll make a batch of them soon and that you’ll enjoy every minute of the making, baking, and sharing of them.
Melted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup (6 ounces) butter , melted
- ¾ cup brown sugar , packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2¼ cup All-purpose flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2¼ cup chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, or baking bits
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and position the oven racks in the top and bottom third of your oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment or a Silpat style reusable baking liner.
- Place the melted butter and both sugars in a large mixing bowl. Stir with a spoon or spatula, scraping the sides of the bowl until the mixture is smooth. Because the butter is melted, there's no need to stir for several minutes, only until everything is well combined and smooth.
- Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla to the bowl and stir until the eggs have broken apart and fully integrated into the mixture.
- In a small bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking soda. Use a dry whisk to mix the ingredients together and break up any small lumps. You can sift the dry ingredients if you prefer.
- Add the dry ingredients in one addition to the bowl. Stir until the dry ingredients have completely integrated into the dough. This shouldn't take long. Stir until there are no visible streaks of flour in the dough.
- Add the chocolate chips, chunks, or baking bits to the dough and stir until they are well distributed throughout the dough.
- Create balls of dough that weigh approximately 2 ounces each or about ¼ cup. Place four balls on each baking sheet, spacing evenly to prevent the cookies from touching as they bake.
- Bake the cookies for 16to 18 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through the baking time tohelp to ensure that the cookies are evenly baked. If you prefer a cookie with asofter interior, pull the cookies at around 16 minutes. If you like a cookiewith a crisp texture inside and out, 18 minutes bake time should create justwhat you are looking for. The cookies should bake up to an even thickness anddry ever so slightly on top. They may appear to be under baked, but they willfirm up upon cooling to room temperature.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, allowing them to cool for 5-10 minutes on the baking sheet to set up. As with any cookie, these are even more delicious when eaten while still warm with a cup of coffee or tea or with a cold glass of milk.