Rick Makes Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies

I'm so bitchy now when I go to bakeries

and get a cookie because everything

is judged against this one and,

like I've written about this cookie.

I've written articles about this cookie.

I dream about this cookie.

I've woken myself up because I am,

I start biting the air.

[laughing]

Really embarrassing but yeah,

that's a sign that I'm hungry

and I'm probably dreaming about something really delicious.

So yeah.

This is the ultimate chocolate chip cookie.

It will ruin you for all other cookies.

Every time I make this for any friends

it becomes their go to cookie.

This is legitimately my favorite cookie on this earth.

It has all of my favorite flavors.

It's got brown butter, dark brown sugar,

toffee, dark chocolate.

The chocolate never seems to actually harden up.

It's just in this perennial state of goo which I love.

I cannot wait to eat this cookie.

So let's get started.

So this cookie is a little bit different than most.

This one we're actually starting with brown butter.

This does a couple of things.

The first thing is it adds incredible flavor.

Because we're browning the butter and we're not whipping it,

it's going to lay a little bit flatter.

The edges of the cookie are going to crisp up.

You're going to get a nice lacy hard texture

on the outside of the cookie but the inside

is going to stay really moist.

And the chocolate is just gonna get really gooey.

All right so the first thing I'm gonna do

is turn on this pan.

I'm gonna drop two sticks of unsalted butter in there.

You just want to basically swirl.

That'll help get the butter to melt more quickly.

So the thing about the brown butter

is that it happens really quickly.

So you can see the outside edges of the pan.

The butter is already starting to brown

and stick to the sides.

As soon as you see it get slightly golden,

go ahead and transfer it to a heat proof bowl.

And you watch, it's going to continue to brown

even as it sits.

And, oh it smells so good.

So this is super hot.

I'm going to scrape it into my stand mixer.

It needs to cool down.

If I put my raw eggs in this right now

you're gonna get brown butter scrambled eggs

and that might sound good but it's really not.

So I'm gonna let that sit and cool

and I'm gonna mix the dry ingredients.

Salt.

Definitely important for baked goods.

By using baking soda you're going

to promote both the spread of the cookie

but also the browning.

I'm gonna give this a little whisk.

This step is really important because you want

to make sure that you've thoroughly incorporated

all of the dry ingredients together.

And now, toffee.

I actually prefer having the toffee in the cookie

so I am going to refrain from starting to eat this.

I'm going to mix the sugars into the butter.

The butter is still pretty hot.

But it's not going to matter for the sugar.

Nothing's going to happen other than that

it's going to cool down a little bit more.

And all we're really doing here is

we're just mixing to combine.

And to also cool it off.

It smells so good.

This is 72% cacao chocolate wafers.

Wafers tend to melt more evenly and smoothly than chips do.

I also find that whenever you buy wafers

they tend to be better quality chocolate

than your average chip.

So I've got this on low.

I'm gonna add the vanilla.

I'm adding two room temp eggs.

All right I'm gonna increase to medium.

It's turning color.

It's a little bit lighter.

It takes between about 30 seconds

and a minute to get this consistency.

You really want to get this sort of light

and creamy texture otherwise your cookie

is just going to spread.

And you're going to get these like really thin cookies.

So now we are going to add the dry.

I'm going to pulse this to make sure

that I don't splatter flour everywhere.

Okay.

Almost looks like its come together.

I'm going to add the chocolate.

So I'm going to go ahead and just pulse it again.

Just to mix.

And now I'm going to take this out.

Now I'm going to add

the toffee.

And make sure you get all of these little shavings as well

'cause those are going to melt in

and just add a lot more flavor.

Just really get in there.

Scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl.

This dough is going to seem really loose and that's fine.

Because of the brown butter you really need

to let this sit for at least 30 minutes.

All right that looks really good.

I want to stick my finger in there

and eat it so bad.

And I think I'm going to, ha.

Quality control.

I'm going to leave that.

Put it out of arm's reach

and let it sit for 30 minutes to harden up.

And then we'll make cookies.

So the dough is rested and by the way,

can I just say that every single member

of this crew got a spoon and ate cookie dough too.

So it wasn't just me.

It is really good though.

So this dough has been resting.

So you can see it comes together.

This is what you're looking for.

They should be firm dough balls

when you put them on the sheet tray.

Otherwise they're just gonna spread

and you're not gonna get the texture

that you should get with this cookie.

I typically use an ice cream scoop when I do cookies.

The shape is perfect for getting like beautiful cookies.

I usually do nine.

Just to get an idea of how much they're going to spread

and then all the subsequent trays,

I will then add either more or keep it the same

depending on the spread.

There is salt in the cookie dough.

I deliberately did not put a lot of salt.

If I was going to not top it with flaky sea salt

I would've upped the salt in the dough.

I really love the hit of salt on the top.

Visually it looks pretty.

But the other thing that it does,

it gives you one more added bit of crunch on the outside.

Chris Morocco actually was around

when I was developing and testing this recipe.

And he and I would literally just take a sheet tray,

fill it up with the cookie balls

and stick it in the freezer.

And in case of emergency we would just pull out

like four or five balls of cookie dough,

throw 'em in the oven.

You've got fresh hot cookies.

Just salt 'em right before they go in the oven.

Don't put the salt on top and then freeze them

'cause it'll melt and you'll just get

a really salty weird edge.

All right so I'm going to throw these in a hot oven.

You want this 375.

So if you really wanted to do two sheets

at a time go for it.

The reason why I didn't is because there are certain cookies

that benefit from being in the center of the oven.

So it's getting the optimal heating from the bottom

and from the top.

Oh yes.

Look at that.

Oh so beautiful.

As much as I want to tear into these, they're super hot.

If I try to pull them off the pan

they would just sort of disintegrate and melt.

So I'm going to leave them on the tray

to crisp up the bottom a little bit

for about 10 minutes.

If you try and pull these off

before 10 minutes they're just going to be way too soft.

And especially if you're using the wafer chocolate.

They'll just sort of disintegrate

and chocolate will go everywhere.

All right so these are going to sit

for another 15 minutes or so.

I might cut into one.

You want to foot one now?

[Man] Yeah.

Okay, oh look at that.

All right here you go.

[Cameraman] You wrote the rules, you can break 'em.

I know.

Oh it's so good.

Cookie?

[Man] You want some really just like cheater's cookie?

Cheater's cookie.

[Man] You want some?

Sure let's tend to them.

[Rick] Yeah that's fine.

Wow that's pretty intense.

All right as much as I want to eat these all to myself,

I'm going to invite Alex in.

So come on Delany.

Let's, you've had these before right?

I have and you're a kind man because

you run the risk of me eating all of these.

Well really I want you to pull me a shot of espresso.

Okay so we're trading.

We're trading.

We're one for one.

Yeah.

Oh dude.

[laughing]

It never gets old.

The brown butter man.

[Rick] And the toffee and the salt.

Dude.

Thank you.

Welcome.

This is making my afternoon right now.

Any time.

Any time, I'm holding you to that.

Tomorrow I'm gonna be like Rick,

where's the cookies?

I mean you know I'll make more.

I'll make you a coffee.

I'm still waiting for my coffee

but I'm just gonna keep eating cookies

'cause they're really [beeping] good.

I'm actually really upset

because I don't have a swap of the cookies.

But that's fine.

I'm going to power through because I love this

[beeping] cookie so much.