Buttery Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

The name tells you where the flavor lives. By leaning hard on brown sugar instead of white, these chocolate chip cookies pick up the molasses notes that give them a deep, almost toffee-like richness and a soft, chewy bite. Brown sugar also holds more moisture than white, which is exactly why these stay tender rather than turning crisp.

A full pound of butter makes them properly rich, but it also means one step is not optional: chilling the dough. With this much fat, a warm dough spreads into thin, greasy puddles in the oven. Chilled, it holds its shape and bakes up thick, with chewy centers and lightly crisp edges.

Bake them just until the edges are set and the middles still look soft. The brown sugar deepens the color quickly, so don’t wait for them to look fully browned or you trade chewy for dry.

Chef Tips

• Chill the dough before baking; with this much butter, skipping it gives you flat, greasy cookies.
• Pull them when the edges are set but the centers still look soft; they finish firming on the hot sheet.
• Don’t judge doneness by color alone, since the brown sugar browns the cookies fast.

Variations

• Brown the butter first for an even deeper, nuttier, caramel flavor.
• Add a handful of toffee bits or a sprinkle of flaky salt to play up the caramel notes.