48 Hour Brown Butter, Dark Chocolate, Espresso, Salted Toffee Cookies
This is one of my go-to Cookie Box recipes. These cookies are complex, decadent and exceptional and I only go to the trouble of making them when I’m expressing my love language: gifts of food.
While I’ll be the first to admit that its perfectly possible to take one recipe and make a half dozen different versions of the same cookie and call it a day, when I do my seasonal cookie box, I go all out. Using just one recipe to make variations and calling it done feels like there isn’t a lot of thought or love put into the gift. To me, its worth the effort to and time to give a gift I would be thrilled to receive. My cookie boxes are a little maximalist and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Unlike the gorgeously cinematic, 5+ million strong viewed video by Alvin Zhou, my version was shot with an iphone and a shaking hand in a messy kitchen.
Because of the browned butter, this recipe does not require any creaming, so it comes together quickly once you have all the ingredients together. That being said, there are a few extra steps such as making the toffee from scratch and browning butter and then of course, the 48 hour curing time. But every one of these steps is worth doing, so don’t skip any!
I’m not a professional candy maker but I will say that making your own toffee is a quick and easy process, but you’ve got to pay attention. If you walk away, the candy could burn and your toffee will be bitter. If you don’t stir continuously, the mixture will separate and you’ll end up with greasy candy. If you don’t cook the mixture to the right temperature, your toffee could end up gooey (not hot enough) or even chalky (too hot). Unless you’ve made toffee many, many times and are perfectly confident, you’ll want to use a thermometer to check you’ve come to the right temperature. Don’t just buy premade toffee. Don’t skip making the toffee. It is totally worth it.
Use good ingredients. Good ingredients helps ensure your end product is good. A good rule of thumb is: the less ingredients you use, the higher quality those ingredients need to be. So, for example, toffee is just butter, sugar and salt. So you want to use good butter, use high quality sugar and salt with a good flavor (not all salt tastes the same!).
Browned butter is just one ingredient: butter. So use a good quality (maybe a Europeon style) butter to maximize that beautiful browned butter flavor.
Use good quality chocolate that you’d actually eat. Alvin suggests 70% dark, but you could certainly go a little darker to give complexity and cut down on the sweetness.
Worth the wait: The 48 hour wait time before baking might seem insane to the casual cookie baker. But trust the process. This is a very complex cookie and it’s got a LOT of sugar in it. As time goes on, flavors became much more balanced and the extreme sweetness seemes to subside, leaving a lovely buttery-toasted-toffee-chocolate-coffee flavor that is unlike any other.
48 Hour Brown Butter, Dark Chocolate, Espresso, Salted Toffee Cookies
Ingredients
- Toffee:
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- Brown Butter:
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 2 ice cubes
- Dough:
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 ½ cups dark brown sugar
- 2 tsp espresso powder
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp good vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 6 oz chocolate, 70% cacao minimum, roughly chopped
- Maldon sea salt
Instructions
- Make the Toffee:
To a medium pan, over medium heat, add equal parts butter and brown sugar (ie: 1 stick of butter, 1 cup brown sugar) and a teaspoon of salt. Stir constantly or mixture will separate. Cook, stirring constantly, melting butter into sugar to create a homogenous mixture, until thermometer measures 300 degrees F. Pour into a prepared pan (a sheet pan covered with parchment) and tilt or spread with spatula to create an even layer. Freeze for 15-20 minutes (or refrigerate up to 1 hour) until hardened. Place candy in a ziplock bag and bash with a rolling pin until peices are approximately 1/2"-3/4".
2. Brown the butter:
In a medium pan, over medium heat, add 2 sticks of butter. Stir consistenetly as butter melts, bubbles and begins to darken. Take pan off the heat and add in a few pieces of ice to replace any lost liquid. Butter should smell nutty and have a lot of darker flecks at the bottom of the pot, but be careful not to burn as it will become bitter! Set aside to cool slightly.
3. Make the dough:
To a bowl, add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, espresso powder, salt, baking soda and cooled butter. Whisk or fold together. Add flour, fold together until only a little bit of flour can be seen, their stir in the toffee and roughly chopped chocolate chunks.
4. Cure for 48 hours
Scoop dough with a 2-3" ice cream scoop and place side by side on a lined tray. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 48 hours. **At this point the dough can baked or frozen for later use.
5. Bake
Bake in a preheated 350 degree F for 18-22 minutes until the edges are slightly crisp but the core is chewwy. Cool in pan 5 or 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Cookies will keep in a covered container for up to 2 weeks but are best within a few days of baking.