browned butter oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookies!

This cookie has all my favorite flavors: browned butter, chocolate chips, oatmeal, coconut and a little bit of saltiness. You could also add some toasted pecans for an extra kick. Ahhhh!!! (head explodes).

• 1 1/2 C AP flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 C unsalted butter
• 1 tsp. fleur de sel (more for sprinkling on top of cookies)
• 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp Vietnamese cinnamon
• 1 1/4 C dark brown sugar
• 1/8 – 1/4 c white sugar (I used about 1/8C)
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 TB molasses
• 1 1/2 c. dark or bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1 C unsweetened coconut (toasting optional)*
• 3 C. old fashioned rolled oats (not steel cut. You could use instant, but I wouldn’t recommend it)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Brown the butter

To brown the butter: add two sticks to saucepan, on low to medium heat. Let butter melt, then it will froth/bubble up, stir it with spatula in order to prevent burning. The bubbles will die down and the butter will start to crackle. The proteins of the butter are sinking to the bottom and after a second bubbling, the bits on the bottom will start to turn a little brown and the butter will change to a more amber color. This whole process will take about 4-5 minutes. Don’t burn the butter, we want it browned. Remove from heat and transfer melted butter and brown bits to a bowl to cool while you assemble the other ingredients. I set my bowl of butter next to an open window, which speeded up the cooling down process. (As I’ve mentioned before, we don’t want to add hot butter to the eggs because we don’t want scrambled eggs).

Combine flour, salt, baking soda, spices in a bowl, set aside.

Once browned butter is cooled, add it to the bowl of a stand mixer, along with the sugars, mix until nice and smooth, which is 2 minutes or so. Add the vanilla, molasses and eggs and beat for three minutes until it’s light and smooth in texture. Then add the flour mixture and beat until combined. (PS-don’t do what I do sometimes and accidentally switch the mixer speed to medium or high, or else you’ll be covered in flour [it WAS funny at the time]. Start slow and then increase the mixer speed. Add the coconut, mix well. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, add the oatmeal and chocolate chips (and pecans if using).
I used a 2 tsp cookie scoop for the cookies because I thought a 1 1/2 TB scoop was too big. But, use whatever you prefer. Allow a couple inches between the cookies. You’ll want to gently flatten the cookie balls and add a sprinkle of fleur de sel to the tops. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them as you want the cookies to just be slightly brown around the edges. Once out of the oven, let cookies rest for 5 minutes, then cool on racks. Cookies will last a week in an airtight container…well, unless you have a Cookie Monster around.

*As I was talking about this recipe with G., I thought that toasting the coconut and then pulvarizing it using a spice grinder would be a good idea. That might be a more complex flavor element. Ah, next time!