Matthew's Brown-Butter Pecan Cookies

My brother, Matt, makes the best bread, so when he offered to make me some cookies for work I couldn’t decline! It takes about 2-3 hours to make these, but the payoff is so so worth it.

Ingredients

1 Cup Bread Flour

¾ cup unbleached All-Purpose Flour

2 tsp kosher salt or 1 ½ tsp table salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

2 tbs warm/room temperature water

1 cup dark brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract 

1 tsp instant coffee

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

5 oz dark chocolate 

⅓ cup pecans

Directions

In a medium or large saucepan, add the butter and melt over medium heat.

Bring the butter to a boil, stirring frequently. The water will boil out of the butter, and it’s the milk solids in the butter will separate, sink to the bottom, and that’s what begins to toast and brown. Make sure you stir constantly so the butter browns evenly (and doesn’t burn!). It will foam, maybe splatter a bit, and be difficult to see, keep a close eye on it, removing from heat and continuing to stir if it starts to foam over.

Once the butter has turned a nice cashew brown, remove from the heat and pour it into a large liquid measuring cup to stop the cooking. Allow it to cool down for a minute or two, give it a stir, and carefully add 2-3 tablespoons of water to the butter to bring it back up to 1 cup (240 ml) of liquid.

Set aside to cool to room temperature. To help speed this process up, you can place it in the fridge or freezer for 10-15 minutes. You want to make sure the butter is still liquid when you’re adding it to the dough, so make sure to remove it after 15 minutes.

While your butter is cooling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then stir together the flours, salt, and baking soda. 

Next, add vanilla and cooled brown butter in a separate bowl. Cream together with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg and yolk and beat until incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients, at about ⅓ of the mixture at a time, and beat between additions until just incorporated.

Fold the chocolate chips and pecans into the dough

Scoop the cookies onto a parchment paper-lined, or greased baking sheet in 3-tablespoon-sized mounds.

Evenly space the dough 3 inches apart from one another on a parchment paper-lined or greased baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes.

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.