Chocolateless chip cookies are exactly what they seem–chocolate chip cookies sans chocolat for all of the people who pick their chocolate chips out of the cookie and just want the good part, this recipe is for you!
I know this chocolateless chip cookie recipe is controversial but there must be some other people out there who crave the delicious chocolate chip cookie batter alone! This post is for you!
My regular chocolate chip cookie recipe uses brown butter, and vanilla bean paste to create the most perfect cookie with depth of flavor. So that’s exactly what we’ll use in these chocolateless chip cookies!
What is Brown Butter?
Brown butter is essentially toasted butter. It involves melting the butter on the stovetop and then allowing the milk solids to toast (or, turn brown). The result is a sweet/nutty butter that has depth of flavor and compliments deeper flavor profiles like brown sugar, perfectly.
Tips for making Brown Butter:
Cut butter into pieces-before adding butter to medium heat, cut it and let it sit out of the refrigerator for about 10 minutes. Cutting the butter will help make sure the heat distributes evenly and letting it sit out will help it not to heat too fast.
Keep it constantly moving-Keep the butter moving with a spatula or whisk the entire time it is over the heat. Don’t try to multitask during this, you want to be there with eyes on it the whole time. The butter will melt down, then foam up, then the milk solids will fall to the bottom of the pan and get toasted. P.s-it will smell INCREDIBLE.
Use a lighter saucepan-If you have a light-bottomed pan use it to heat the butter so that you are able to better see when it has browned. Be careful here, it can go from perfectly browned to burnt very quickly!
Include all the brown bits!-Don’t leave the brown bits in the pan, this is what brings that bold flavor! When transferring the browned butter to a medium bowl, use a spatula to scrape out every last bit of butter and brown bits.
What kind of butter should I use?
Not all butter is created equally–certain brands have a higher fat content and chemical makeup than others. The butters that say “European style” are typically the ones with a higher fat content like the Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter, or Plugrà brands.
These brands are excellent to work with when making pastry, but for my cookies, I actually prefer a more “American style” butter. American butters have a higher water content than a lot of european or european style butters and that’s exactly what we need for the texture of these cookies to come out chewy, dense and delicious!
Some brands I recommend that work really well with these chocolateless chip cookies:
Why Vanilla Bean Paste?
Vanilla bean paste is a more concentrated vanilla flavor. It includes specs of the vanilla bean pod and I find that it is a great addition to these chocolateless chip cookies. If you can’t get your hands on vanilla bean paste, vanilla extract will still do the trick, but if you want the very best cookies I recommend finding it!
If you can’t find vanilla bean paste in stores, here is the brand I use all of the time on amazon.
Why do I have to chill these chocolateless chip cookies?
Our cookies need to chill for at least 1 hour in the refrigerator so that the butter in the dough can become solid once again. When the butter is solid right before baking, it creates the ideal dense and chewy texture that we want these cookies to have!
Please send me any questions or comments you may have about this recipe here! And be sure to tag me on Instagram or TikTok @karisscorner if you bake them!
Happy Chocolateless Baking!
Can baking be therapeutic?
I often talk about baking being a therapeutic hobby but I’d like to share more about why I feel that way as well as how it can become a relaxing hobby for you!
When I bake, it’s my creative time. I may put on my favorite nostalgic movie or tv show in the background, or a Spotify playlist titled “French café” and leave my troubles behind.
Sometimes I pour myself a glass of wine and light a candle. Then, with the mood set, the mixing of batter, kneading of dough and smoothing of icing is my only care in the world.
When I say baking is therapeutic, sometimes people respond saying “not for me it isn’t!” I completely understand why someone might feel that way. There have been plenty of times where I spend hours on something only for it to fail or something breaks that shouldn’t or I forget to clean as I go and am left with a disastrous kitchen to clean.
So I should in reality, have a caveat to my “baking as therapy” claims…
Baking is therapy when you curate the experience to be relaxing.
How do you curate that relaxing experience for yourself, you ask?
How to make baking therapeutic…
- Prepare your mind–know that it’s okay if the cake doesn’t rise, or the butter wasn’t chilled enough. Shift your mindset from seeing your failures as mistakes to seeing them as opportunities for learning.
- Prepare your space–I cannot and will not bake on top of a messy kitchen. If I were to do this I would be starting from a place of stress! Take an extra 10 minutes to clean any dishes in the sink and wipe down the counters, this small effort will pay you back greatly in brain space and clarity.
- Clean as you go! I’ll tell you the one way to make baking stressful and tiresome, is to not clean as you go! After I use each ingredient that I no longer need, I put it away.
After each major step in the process, I wipe down the counters and put dishes that are no longer needed in the sink. If there is chill time or baking time I don’t sit, I do the cleaning then. Make this shift and you’ll really notice the difference!
By the way, this last tip really helped me when I was on The Great American Baking Show–and the crew that cleaned up behind us made a point to tell me that my workspace was always so clean they didn’t have much to do!
I would reply by saying “it’s how I stay sane in this tent!”
Additional suggestions:
*Maybe try printing off the recipe instead of looking at it on your phone, tablet or laptop and use this time to unplug from technology for a few hours
**Invite friends or family over to share your creation with you. Time spent with loved ones over food is a universally special experience
And that’s how I discovered baking for my mental health. If you try any of these suggestions, let me know how it went for you! I’m really invested in spreading this message to others in hopes that baking will enhance your lives more than it already does!
Chocolateless Chip Cookies
Ingredients
For the Chocolateless Chip Cookies
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks or 170g) unsalted butter cold, cubed + 1/2 Tbsp (8g) cold butter to add after browning
- 1 cup (200g) light brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp (30g) granulated sugar
- 1 (55g) large egg room temperature
- 2 (30g) large egg yolks room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 2 cups (250g) all purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
For the Chocolateless Chip Cookies
- Cut the ¾ cups (170g) of unsalted butter into 1 Tbsp cubes and place the cubes in a saucepan. Turn the heat to medium/high and brown the butter.
- Remove the butter from the heat and pour into a medium bowl. Don’t forget to get all of the brown bits out of the saucepan!
- Add ½ Tbsp (8g) of cold butter to help make up for some of the volume lost while browning the butter. Stir in the cold butter until it melts. Allow the butter to cool slightly.
- While the butter is cooling, measure out 2 cups (250g) of all purpose flour, ¾ tsp of baking soda and 1 tsp sea salt into a separate bowl and whisk together.
- Then add 1 cup (200g) of light brown sugar and 2 tbsp (30g) of granulated sugar to the slightly cooled butter and beat by hand with a whisk until well combined.
- Add in 1 large egg (55g), 2 large egg yolks (30g) and 2 tsp of vanilla bean paste* and beat again by hand until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix with a spatula until combined.
- Use a 1” cookie scoop to scoop out the cookie dough onto a tray. You can place the cookies close together since you will need to refrigerate them before baking. The batter should yield 24, 1" cookies
- Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour. Towards the end of the hour preheat the oven to 350 ℉ (180 ℃).
- Bake cookies for 11-13 minutes depending on your preferences
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray. Optionally, sprinkle a bit of flaky salt on top. Then remove to a cooling rack, allow to finish cooling and enjoy!!
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