Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Suggest that the baking time with cookies this large is going to be more like 19-20 minutes for me. Love the tip about banging the tray on the counter. That is a boss move and I did it. The recipe really isn’t that salty, so the flaky salt on top is definitely welcome. And the verdict: these are great cookies! Love the chocolate to cookie ratio, and the cinnamon and brown sugar in the background just elevate the toastiness of the brown butter. Where has this been all my life?

As for not enough room to chill on a sheet pan, I roll dough into balls and just use the mixing bowl to chill them in the fridge.

If your cookie sheets won't fit in the refrigerator, I have placed the shaped cookies in a plastic container with parchment paper between the layers

Same fridge issue with an alternative to placing pre-scooped balls into a smaller container. Try rolling the dough into a log and refrigerating the log. Cut into the same number as the recipe’s yield and they’ll be a like size.

This is one of many recipes that I've noticed include placing something in the refrigerator before baking. I wonder if I am alone in not having a refrigerator empty enough to get a pan of cookies in it? Could one refrigerate the dough (in its much smaller bowl) into the fridge before scooping into balls for baking and still get satisfactory results?

Melting the 2 sticks of unsalted butter is step 1, but you want to take it to step 2, where you keep it on the heat until it toasts/browns - a good indicator that it's near ready is when you stop hearing sizzling sounds (keep scraping the pan with a spatula so that the milk solids don't stick and burn). In the end, you'll have a liquid that's the color of amber or even caramel - some like to go even darker, but once it gets to dark coffee, it's burnt. Your nose is a good guide throughout.

Underbaking these is key. I overbaked the first few and they had all the appeal of hockey pucks. I underbaked the next ones and then smashed them a bit with a spoon to flatten them and give the flaky salt somewhere to stick. They were so good they made my husband lose his train of thought.

I've found that when I have covered cookie dough in a bowl and left it in the fridge that it results in a drier cookie. I'd personally recommend wrapping the entire ball of dough in plastic/beeswax wrap before refrigeration.

Brown butter is what happens when you melt the butter over the stove top until the milk solids fall to the bottom of the pot and begin to brown. The solids can go from light brown to burnt pretty quick, so remember that carry-over heat will help them get to golden brown. Brown butter just imparts more flavor. Start with unsalted butter so that you can control the amount of salt that goes into the cookies, since you can't control the amount that's in the butter.

These were fantastic! They were so buttery and oily going into the fridge that I thought I did something wrong. I left them uncovered hoping to dry them out a touch. But they turned out beautifully! I did add the touch of cinnamon and loved it. Very subtle, but enjoyable. I also agree that the flaky salt on top is a must! Ours were very much best warm. The next day they were quite dried out, even after spending the night in a covered container.

Well. I devoured the comments, then made the cookies. Can't remember the last time I mixed cookie dough w a wooden spoon. Used c. 1/2 bag of Ghirardelli semi sweets and half tsp of cinnamon. Possibly the best ccc recipe I've ever tried, thank you.

the chocolate chips melted when i put them in - need to let the brown butter cool

Since you have to refrigerate the dough first anyway, might it be easier and faster to just roll the dough into a log in plastic wrap and freeze that, then cut disks? It would save space in the freezer as well, for those of us in Europe who don't have walk-in freezers like everyone in the US (kidding, but our refrigeration is super small).

Baked exactly according to the recipe. I don’t care for the cookies. The texture is quite dry — almost sandy. The dough was crumbly and did not hold together well. The finished cookies are too salty for my taste (I did not even sprinkle salt on top). The intense butter flavor is cloying and after eating 2 cookies I have indigestion. They also took quite a bit longer to prepare than other chocolate chip recipes. Lightly browning the butter took about 10 minutes not 5 as the recipe states.

I enjoyed these a lot but didn’t find that the banging of the pan changed the shape of them at all - maybe I baked them too long? I froze some of the dough balls and am curious to see how they do baked from frozen.