These brown butter bourbon chocolate chip cookies are unique and oh so gourmet! They have a thick, chewy texture and are scooped large for a bakery-style look. A splash of bourbon, melty chopped chocolate, and flaky sea salt all take them over the top!
Chocolate Chip Cookies With Bourbon & Brown Butter
Nutty brown butter, warm bourbon, rich chocolate, and just a hint of sea salt–have I piqued your interest yet?! These brown butter bourbon chocolate chip cookies are the boozy cousin to my brown butter chocolate chip cookies and elevate a household staple (talking about the butter, not the bourbon 😉) into something extraordinary. If you are looking for a dessert that’s simple, familiar, but also a bit edgy and more interesting, you’ve officially found it!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- No chilling or mixer needed. Since we are starting with melted brown butter, the dough comes together easily without the need for a mixer. And while the dough doesn’t need to chill before baking (yay!), you will need to wait a *little* bit for the butter to cool down before you can move on to the next steps of the recipe.
- Unique and fun, but also crowd-pleasing. Similar to my black bottom cookies, these cookies stand out in a crowd and yet they are also incredibly crowd-pleasing. The bourbon is unexpected but fits in seamlessly, the nutty brown butter adds a familiar coziness, and the chocolate chip cookie base is something everyone can get behind!
- Gourmet taste & appearance, yet still very approachable. The sweet caramel and vanilla notes of bourbon pair beautifully with classic chocolate chip cookies. These cookies taste fancy enough to impress just about anyone, and with their sea salted, melty pools of chocolate, they look straight from a bakery. At the same time, they are still very easy to make without any complicated techniques, tools, or hard-to-find ingredients.
Jump to:
Ingredients
- Bourbon. Use your favorite! I’ve used the brand shown above as well as Jim Beam, but really any kind of bourbon that you enjoy drinking will work.
- Dark brown sugar. The deeper, more molasses-y flavor of dark brown sugar really pairs well with the caramel notes of the bourbon. If you don’t have dark brown sugar on hand but you do have granulated sugar and molasses, you can actually save a trip to the store and make it yourself, see my post on how to make brown sugar.
- Egg + egg yolk. Bourbon adds extra moisture to the dough, if we don’t accommodate for that, we’ll end up with cakey or even dry cookies (a problem with many pumpkin cookies). We account for the extra moisture by eliminating the second egg white and instead use just the egg yolk.
- Semi-sweet chocolate bar. While chocolate chips will work fine (you would want to use 1 ½ cups), I prefer a chopped chocolate bar for a more gourmet experience (just like in my double chocolate chunk cookies!). Dark chocolate would be excellent here too!
- Sea salt. The combo of salty and sweet just works well with the bourbon and brown butter flavors, don’t skip it.
This is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
SAM’S TIP: Room temperature eggs will incorporate best. If you forget to set yours out ahead of time, follow my trick to quickly bring eggs to room temperature.
How to Make Them
Brown the Butter
Melt the butter over medium low heat in a light colored saucepan. Increase the heat to just above medium, and cook, stirring constantly, as the butter pops and foams. Once the popping and foaming slows down, keep a close eye as you look for browned milk solids forming on the bottom of the pan. Once you see quite a bit of browning happening (as shown above!), remove the pan from the heat to prevent any burning.
Pour the brown butter into a heatproof bowl and add your bourbon. I cannot overstate how incredibly important it is that you let the butter cool down (completely!) before adding your sugars; if you don’t you’ll be left with a greasy dough that spreads all over your baking pans.
Make the Dough
Once your butter has completely cooled (it doesn’t need to be re-solidified, but it shouldn’t be at all warm), stir in your sugars. Add the eggs and vanilla, then set this aside.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Grab your butter mixture and gradually add the dry ingredients until everything is completely combined and the dough is cohesive. Fold in the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips.
Bake
Scoop the dough into large balls and roll them so they bake nice and uniform. Bake until the edges begin to turn a light golden brown.
Sprinkle the cookies with sea salt immediately after removing from the oven. They will be very fragile when warm, so let them cool completely on their baking sheet before enjoying.
SAM’S TIP: The longer these cookies sit, the better they taste. I actually like them even more the second day!
Frequently Asked Questions
The alcohol cooks out while baking, so there’s no chance that you’ll get a buzz from a cookie or two. Regardless; the bourbon is present and you will absolutely taste it. If you don’t like bourbon, make my brown butter chocolate chip cookies instead!
If your butter was still warm when you added the sugars, it can actually melt the sugars and cause a super runny, greasy dough. No amount of chilling can fix this, so it’s best to avoid it in the first place.
This can also happen if you add your dough to hot cookie sheets–never do this!
Yes! You can make this dough up to 3 days in advance. Be sure to cover the bowl tightly to prevent it from drying out, and just know that the dough will be quite hard to scoop after chilling that long (you’ll likely need to let it sit on your counter to soften before you can scoop it).
You can also freeze this cookie dough! To do this, follow the instructions in my post on how to freeze cookie dough.
More Brown Butter Recipes
Looking for more brown butter cookies? Try my brown butter snickerdoodles, brown butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, or brown butter toffee cookies!
Enjoy!
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Brown Butter Bourbon Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter cut into Tablespoon-sized pieces
- 3 Tablespoons bourbon
- 1 cup (200 g) dark brown sugar
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1 egg + 1 egg yolk room temperature preferred
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ¾ cups (340 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon table salt
- 6 oz (170 g) semi-sweet chocolate bar chopped
- Flaky sea salt for sprinkling
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Brown the butter. Place butter in medium-sized skillet and heat over medium/low heat until melted. Once melted, increase heat to just above medium and use a heatproof spatula to stir and swirl the butter constantly. Butter will begin to bubble, sputter, and pop. When the popping slows down you will see brown bits forming on the bottom of your pan. Once you see significant browning, remove from heat and pour into a heat-proof bowl.1 cup unsalted butter
- Add bourbon, stir, and set aside to cool until butter is no longer warm to the touch. As the butter cools, preheat oven to 350F (175C), line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.3 Tablespoons bourbon
- Once butter is cooled, add sugars and stir well.1 cup (200 g) dark brown sugar, ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir to combine.1 egg + 1 egg yolk, 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.2 ¾ cups (340 g) all-purpose flour, 1 Tablespoon cornstarch, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ¾ teaspoon table salt
- Gradually add dry ingredients into the wet, stirring until completely combined.
- Add chopped chocolate and stir well.6 oz (170 g) semi-sweet chocolate bar
- Scoop dough into 2 Tablespoon sized scoops (86g) and place on prepared baking sheet, spacing cookies at least 2” (5cm) apart.
- Transfer to center rack of 350F preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes or until edges are beginning to turn light golden.
- Upon removing from oven, sprinkle lightly with flaky sea salt. Allow to cool completely on pan before enjoying!Flaky sea salt
Notes
Storing
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
I originally pubished this recipe in June of 2015. I’ve since updated the recipe to improve upon it and have updated the photos and text of the post as well. If you are looking for the old recipe, you can find the original here.
Theresa Weisbrod
Hi Sam! I just found your website while searching for a recipe for browned butter bourbon chocolate chip cookies and can’t wait to make them. I also noticed the beautiful tiny green plates that you have the cookies stacked on and since I’m a bit of a plate collector ( hoarder!!) I was wondering if you could tell me where you got them or the name of them?
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you so much, Theresa! I actually got the plates years ago at a thrift shop. All the green one says is “California Pantry” on the bottom and the green and white one says “Royal China” on the bottom if that helps. 🙂
Carol T
Delicious! I divided the batch and drizzled half of them with a quick bourbon glaze (bourbon, confectioners sugar, a little heavy cream and a little orange zest – just threw it together, so all by taste). The unglazed ones were a hit with everybody – the bourbon is very subtle – not a boozy cookie. And the glazed ones were over the top favorites for the bourbon lovers. First time I’ve baked with browned butter and WOW do I love that flavor! I bake cookies a lot, and by popular demand these are going into my permanent rotation!!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the cookies, Carol! The browned butter really adds an incredible depth of flavor. 🙂
Andi
I just made the cookies and used 1/4 cup scoop. The yield was 2 dozen cookies. I scooped them into parchment paper lined pans and chilled. I plan to bake them tomorrow. Is this correct, or should I make smaller cookies tomorrow.
Sam
Hi Andi, you can make them whatever size you would like but I usually do 1/4 cup. Enjoy 🙂
Alaina
Hi Sam! I almost never make comments but these cookies were so delicious I felt like I had to! I’ve never used brown butter before but they really did bring my cookies to a whole new level. I’ve only made them one time but I am definitely going to try them again. I think I put too much chocolate chips in mine because I noticed that in the cookies with less chocolate, I could taste the dough and slight hint of bourbon much better. In the future, if I want to make the bourbon flavor stand out more, how much more bourbon do you think I could add to the cookie dough without it overpowering the overall flavor of the cookie?
I will definitely be trying more of you recipes in the future! I am currently eyeing your White Cake(:
Sam
Hi Alaina! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed the cookies! It’s tough to say about the bourbon without trying it in a greater amount because increasing the liquid can have an adverse affect on the outcome of the cookies (too much could make them too cakey or spread too much etc.). I think I’d recommend swapping out regular vanilla extract for one that’s been made with bourbon (if you can get your hands on some, Nielsen Massey sells a Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla extract) but other than that it will honestly just have to be trial and error. I wouldn’t recommend trying more than an additional Tablespoon of bourbon for starters. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful with exact measurements!
David
Or….Jim Beam makes a vanilla flavored bourbon…which is what I used.
Shawn
How many servings does this recipe yield? Those cookies look amazing! I’d love to make these for a party soon.
Sam
Hi, Shawn! Sorry for the delayed response. This should make about 3 dozen cookies. 🙂
frances
Hello, I wanted to ask… I am hoping to make one of your recipes for work (it’s potluck time): The Smo’re Cookies Recipe or this Brown Butter and Bourbon cookie recipe! Is it possible that I use this brown butter cookie recipe as a base and make it into a smore’s cookie (adding marshmellows and hershey bars) or do you recommend utilizing the smores cookie recipe instead?
Please let me know
thank you!!
Sam
Hi, Frances! You can add the marshmallows and chocolate bars to the Browned Butter & Bourbon Cookies. The s’mores cookies actually have graham cracker crumbs in them for an even different flavor. Either one will work. Enjoy! 🙂
Krystal
How many cookies does the recipe yield?
Alaina
I used an ice cream scoop and ended up with about 46 cookies, give or take a few. I did eat some dough (I couldn’t resist) and it was hard to keep track when my brothers would run through the kitchen and snatch them up as they came out of the oven!
Sunshine
Oh my gosh. These were UNBELIEVABLY GOOD.
My boyfriend isn’t a huge fan of sweets, so it really made me grin when his eyes got really wide after he tried one and he immediately rushed back into the kitchen to grab three more.
Sam
Yay! So glad to hear they were such a hit!! 🙂
Michael Harman
I know this is a couple years old now, but thought I’d comment.
First, cookies are a big part of Christmas for me, growing up we always made a lot of cookies to give as gifts to teachers and friends. The best part was that it was a good amount of time we got to spend with my dad who worked a lot to keep the roof over our heads. So I’m always excited when Thanksgiving is over so I can get started on cookie baking for the season.
Anyway, I had a bag of cinnamon chips and the recipe on the back of the bag just seemed kinda boring. So I did some research (I searched Google for ‘what goes with cinnamon’) and found a lot of recipes (mostly drinks) that combined cinnamon with bourbon. I’m always up for cooking/baking with booze. Did some more research (I Googled ‘bourbon cookie recipes’) and this recipe was one of the first results that came up. The way you described it was what I was looking for (soft cookies for the win!) so I decided I’d follow your recipe, just substituting cinnamon chips for the chocolate chips/chunks.
They were delicious and were a huge hit at both my work and my wife’s (did get some complaints that the alcohol bakes out but you can’t please everyone). I made them a good bit smaller than recommended, but they came out great at the minimum baking time. Really didn’t have any problems working with the refrigerated dough.
So I wanted to say thanks for a great recipe!
(Hope this doesn’t double-post)
Sam
I’m so glad to hear that they were such a hit! The cinnamon chips in the dough actually sounds amazing, I am going to have to try that out for myself. Thank you for making my recipe a part of your Christmas cookie baking tradition and for coming back to let me know how they turned out for you, I really appreciate it! Happy baking! 🙂
Grace
This was posted a year ago so I don’t know if you’ll see this, but… Would it be possible to scoop out the portions to bake BEFORE the overnight refrigeration, while the dough is still soft, or would that interfere with the purpose of that step? (I’m not a baker so I wouldn’t want to risk the disaster of a clever mis-step–!)
Sam
Hi Grace! I actually think that is a great idea, it’ll make it much easier and won’t interfere with anything. I think I’ll update the recipe to suggest just that, too. Thanks, and I hope you love the cookies!
Grace
An acceptable baking idea… from me?! Better make a whole batch and eat them all first to test it! *ka*wink!*
Sam
Haha! You need your own blog now, Grace! 😉
I really hope you love the cookies!
marcie
I love this spin on chocolate chip cookies — these look everything but ordinary, and I LOVE brown butter!
Sam
Thank you Marcie! 🙂
Chella
A classic and great twist to the chocolate chip cookie and it is definitely worth trying! And btw, ‘love the plates too..
Sam
Thanks Chella! 🙂
Hannah | The Swirling Spoon
These cookies look pretty much to die for! They look so chewy and have spreaded so perfectly! I love summer storms, as long as I’m inside for them and get to watch from behind a window 😛
Harriet Emily
*mouth drools* These have to be the best cookies I’ve ever seen! Omg. They are so stunning!! I am such a cookie lover, I can barely go a day without one. I neeeeeeed to make these! Yum!!!
Sam
Haha, thank you Harriet! If you try them out let me know how you like them!
Beeta @ Mon Petit Four
Sam, these look incredible!! I love how chewy they look, which doesn’t surprise me since you used lots of brown sugar and cornstarch – perfection! I also love that you browned your butter…I can imagine how flavorful and life-changing these cookies are! <3
Sam
Thank you Beeta! 🙂