I’m sorry you’ve ended up on this page because now you’re cursed to crave these cookies until you (make and) try them yourself.
These cookies are so insanely addictive and for a good reason—the brown butter and earl grey double twist on a traditional chocolate chip recipe is life-changing. It took me 1.5 years of quarantine baking and many, many delicious iterations to perfect this recipe.
I highly recommend you measure in grams if you can, as dry ingredients by volume can be variable and affect how your cookies turn out.
1 cup (2 sticks; 227 grams) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons (10 grams) loose-leaf earl grey tea leaves
2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup packed (215 g) dark brown sugar
⅓ cup (73 g) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
200 g chocolate wafers (semi-sweet)
100 g chocolate wafers (dark chocolate, 72% cacao or higher)
Step 1
Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally or swirling the pan, until it foams, then browns, ~6-8 minutes. Use a spatula to scrape browned specks at the bottom and pour into a large bowl. Let cool slightly until lukewarm, ~10 minutes.
Step 2
Pulse tea leaves, flour, baking soda, & kosher salt in a food processor until the tea leaves are tiny specks dispersed throughout the flour.
Step 3
Add brown sugar and granulated sugar to browned butter in a medium bowl. Whisk together until dissolved and a deep-golden yellow, ~1-5 minutes depending on your arm strength. Add eggs and vanilla, whisk until the mixture lightens and thickens to a pale-golden yellow.
Step 4
Sift in dry ingredient mixture, stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until *just* combined. Be careful not to overmix. Mix in chocolate wafers, stir just twice or thrice, just to disperse wafers throughout the dough. Step 5Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest in fridge for a minimum of 8 hours (overnight) or ideally up to 48 hours. This allows for the fats to fully absorb into the flour and gives the dough a more matured flavor.
Step 5
Preheat oven to 375° and place rack in middle. Portion dough into 20 evenly sized round ping-pong balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing ~3” apart. DO NOT FLATTEN. Cookies will spread as they bake.
Step 6
Bake cookies until edges are golden brown and firm but centers are still soft. I really can’t tell you how long this will take. On some days, it took ~10 minutes and others it took ~20 minutes; this number is highly variable based on your oven, the weather, outside temperature, humidity, the position of the stars.
Step 7
Sprinkle flakey sea salt on immediately after pulling them from the oven, & enjoy with my drink pairing recommendations: an iced americano, hot earl grey latte, cold glass of milk, or your beverage of choice.
