Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

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Chocolate chip cookie bars are tasty, but browned butter chocolate chip cookie bars? Now they are delicious! Browned butter adds a deep nutty flavour that goes beautifully well with the dark chocolate and sugary cookie.

pile of cookie bars

These browned butter chocolate chip cookie bars are simple to make but so delicious, and sooo moreish. I 100% could eat two in one sitting! They’re chewy, soft and so moist. Everything you want in a cookie, but in chunky bar meaning there’s no chilling time. Which means you get to enjoy your cookie bar muchhh quicker.

Key Ingredients You’ll Need

  • Unsalted Butter – the butter is the star of these cookie bars, so make sure you use the best quality you can afford. Your tastebuds will thank you!
  • Caster sugar & Light Brown Soft Sugar – I like to use a combination of sugars in my cookies. The caster sugar adds sweetness and texture, whereas the brown sugar adds a deep caramel flavour and moisture.
  • Dark Chocolate – I always prefer to use dark chocolate in my cookies as I think the bitter chocolate complements really well with the sweet cookie dough, resulting in a much better balanced cookie. But! If you hate dark chocolate, use milk or white – its not a deal breaker for the cookie bars.
  • Sea Salt Flakes – This is optional, but I realllly love how sea salt and dark chocolate marries together so well. It adds the most delicious tang to the cookie bars.
browned butter chocolate chip cookie bars

How to make browned butter chocolate chip cookie bars:

Aside from browning the butter, this really is a one bowl recipe. And there’s no cookie shaping to be worried about, we’re pressing the dough into a tin with our hands – old school style!

How to brown butter:

So, what do we mean by ‘brown butter’ (or buerre noisette)? By gently heating the butter you will a. cook out the water content of your butter (which will in turn reduce the weight of the butter) and b. toast the milk solids in the butter. The butter will turn a light brown colour with darker flecks (your milk solids), and will be packed full of flavour that improves any dish – sweet & savoury alike! Phew! I said butter a lot there!!

When you heat the butter you want to keep it on a low-medium heat and stir it every now and then. The butter will melt, then foam and finally settle down into a light brown colour. This is when you need to take it off the heat. You can burn your butter, so don’t leave it unattended!

At this point you can leave the butter to cool, and it will solidify again to create a beautiful flecked butter. But for our cookie bars, we can use it straight away in its melted state!

A quick note: You can add browned butter into any recipe you like, using the method above. But remember that browned butter reduces in weight, so you will need to use more butter than the recipe states. Most European butters have a fat content of 82% with the remaining percentage being water – so you will need to add approx. 18% butter to the recipe. Most American butters have a fat content of 80% with the remaining percentage being water – so you will need to add approx. 20% butter to the recipe.

ingredients
cookie dough batter

Making the cookie bars dough

Once we have our browned butter ready, it can be whisked together with both sugars until well combined with no lumps. I find it easiest to use an electric hand-whisk for this, though you can of course use a stand mixer or just simply mix by hand! The egg, egg yolk and vanilla are then combined. With the dry ingredients being added last.

Your mixture will have come together as a soft but thick dough at this point.

The final step is to chop the chocolate – using a bar over chips or chunks is always the best option! And then mixing this into the dough.

chocolate cookie dough batter
cookie dough in tin

Baking the cookie bars

As these are bars not cookies, the dough needs to be pressed into a 9x9inch baking tin. Honestly, I find it easiest to just do this by hand, so you can really make sure the bars are even and well packed down.

And as these are bars not cookies, we don’t need to spend time chilling the cookie balls – hooray! This means you’re eating quicker which is a great win in my book!

The bars bake for 20 minutes, and then need 15 minutes to cool in the tin, before cooling completely on a cooling rack out of the tin. Like with most traybakes or brownies, you don’t want to cut into these too quickly however tempting it may be! It will be a hot and sticky mess!

Trust me though, these are worth the wait! 😉

cookie bars

Tips & Tricks

How should I store chocolate chip cookie bars?

These bars should keep well in an air-tight container for 3-4 days. After that they will begin to get hard and lose their moisture a little.

How can you tell when chocolate chip cookie bars are done?

Once the bars are a little hard on top and are a nice golden brown colour they’re ready. The bars will continue cooking outside the oven while they rest in the tin, so better to take them out earlier rather than later if you’re worried.

Can I use milk/white chocolate in the cookie bars?

Yes! You can use whichever chocolate you prefer, though I personally feel that dark chocolate really works well in these bars.

cookie bars

I really hope you like these bars as much as I do! They’re so moist, chewy and packed full of sweet salty flavour! Perfect with a glass of milk for an afternoon snack, or to pack into a lunch box. Really, there’s always time for chocolate cookies right!!

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browned butter chocolate chip cookie bars

Burned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Aimee Field
Chocolate chip cookie bars are tasty, but browned butter chocolate chip cookie bars? Now they are delicious! Moist, chewy and so moreish!
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Cooling Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Course Biscuits
Cuisine British
Servings 8 Bars

Ingredients
  

  • 140 g unsalted butter
  • 200 g dark chocolate
  • 110 g caster sugar
  • 110 g soft light brown sugar
  • 1 large egg & 1 large egg yolk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 250 g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/2 tsp table salt
  • 1 tsp sea salt flakes optional

Instructions
 

  • Firstly, preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas Mark 4. Then grease a 9x9inch square baking tin, and line the base and two opposite sides with baking paper.
  • For the browned butter: Place the butter into a small saucepan over a low-medium heat and melt stirring every now and then. Keep the melted butter on the heat as it foams, stirring every now and then until the foaming subsides and you're left with a light brown butter with darker flecks. Then take off the heat and set aside.
  • For the dough: Firstly, chop the chocolate into rough chunks and set aside. Then add the browned melted butter into a large bowl with both the sugars. Using an electric hand-whisk, whisk on a high speed until well combined. Then add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and whisk again until well combined. Then whisk in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and table salt until you have a soft thick dough. Finally, mix in the chopped chocolate.
  • Tip the cookie dough into the prepared baking tin, and using your hands flatten in the tin till even. Then bake for 20 minutes until lightly golden brown, then remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 15 minutes. Finally, remove from the tin and leave to cool completely on a cooling rack, sprinkling with sea salt flakes if desired. Then slice into 8 bars.

Notes

Keep in an air-tight container for 3-4days. 
Keyword brown butter, cookies, dark chocolate


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