Chewy Brown Butter Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with no cakey texture anywhere in sight. These bake chewy in the middle with crisp, craggy edges, and the browned butter gives them a nutty, almost toffee depth that a regular pumpkin cookie never gets near. I tested this one five times before it went on the blog, because every pumpkin cookie I had made up to that point came out like a muffin top.

The fix turned out to be blotting the pumpkin, and I will show you exactly how far to take it. There is no chilling either, so these go from bowl to cooling rack in one sitting. If the soft, cakey version is the one you actually want, go make my bakery style pumpkin chocolate chip muffins instead. These are the opposite of those on purpose.

Why These Brown Butter Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Work

Five things separate these browned butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from the cakey ones.

• The pumpkin gets blotted, not spooned straight from the can. Canned pumpkin carries a lot of water, and water is what turns a pumpkin cookie into a little cake. You press it between paper towels until half a cup weighs 70 grams, and at that point the dough behaves like ordinary cookie dough instead of batter.
• Egg yolks only. Whites are mostly water and protein, and protein sets. Pulling them out is most of the reason these read as chewy rather than springy.
• The butter is browned and then completely cooled. Browning drives off water and toasts the milk solids, which is where the nutty flavor comes from. Cooling it back down is what keeps the dough thick. If you have never done it before, I walk through the method in detail in my brown butter chocolate chip cookies.
• Dark brown sugar over light. More molasses means more moisture held in the cookie and a deeper, less one-note sweetness sitting next to the spice.
• No chilling. The pumpkin is already blotted and the butter is already cool, so there is nothing left for a rest in the fridge to fix.

Key Ingredients

• Pumpkin puree. Puree, not pie filling. Pie filling arrives pre-sweetened and pre-spiced and will throw off both the sugar and the liquid. You need half a cup, blotted down to 70 grams.
• Browned unsalted butter. Three quarters of a cup goes into the pan and about 145 grams comes out, because some of it cooks off as water.
• Egg yolks. Two, at room temperature. Save the whites for something else.
• Dark brown sugar. Two thirds of a cup, plus two tablespoons of granulated sugar for the crisp edge.
• Pumpkin pie spice. One teaspoon. Store bought is fine, though my homemade pumpkin pie spice blend uses jars you already own and tastes noticeably fresher.
• Semisweet chocolate chips. Three quarters of a cup. A chopped bar gives you thin melted layers instead of round chips, the same way it does in my brown butter pecan chocolate chip cookies.

Substitutions And Additions

• Light brown sugar instead of dark. Works, and you will lose a little depth. Nothing else changes.
• Different chocolate. Dark chocolate chunks, white chocolate or a chopped bar all swap in at the same volume.
• Make it a half batch. Use one egg yolk, 35 grams of blotted pumpkin, and halve everything else. You will get nine cookies.
• Bake it as bars. Press the dough into a lined 8×8 pan and bake at 350F for 22 to 26 minutes, until the edges are set and the middle still looks slightly underdone. Cool fully before cutting. They land chewier than the cookies, closer to my chocolate chip brown butter blondies.
• Skip the chocolate. Leave the chips out, roll the dough in cinnamon sugar, and you are most of the way to my brown butter pumpkin snickerdoodles.
• Gluten free. A 1:1 cup-for-cup blend with xanthan gum already in it swaps straight across.
• No pumpkin pie spice. Use three quarters of a teaspoon of cinnamon, a quarter teaspoon of ginger, and a pinch each of nutmeg and cloves.

H2How To Make Brown Butter Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. Melt the butter in a light colored saucepan over medium heat and keep it moving. It will foam, go quiet, and then the milk solids at the bottom will turn golden brown and start smelling like toasted nuts. Pour it into a bowl right away, scraping every brown bit out with it, and let it cool until it is thick and no longer warm to the touch. This is the step people rush, and rushing it is why cookies spread.

2. Spread half a cup of pumpkin puree on a doubled paper towel, lay another on top, and press. Swap in fresh towels and press again. You are going until that half cup weighs about 70 grams, which usually takes three or four rounds. It should look matte and hold its shape rather than slump.

3. Whisk the cooled browned butter with the dark brown sugar and the granulated sugar until it looks glossy.

4. Add the egg yolks, the blotted pumpkin and the vanilla, and whisk again until it is completely smooth with no streaks left.

5. Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice together in a separate bowl, then tip it onto the wet mixture. Fold with a spatula just until the flour disappears.

6. Add the chocolate chips and give it one more gentle pass.

7. Scoop two tablespoon portions onto a parchment lined sheet, leaving room between them. No chilling. The dough should hold a ball without slumping, and if it does slump the butter was still warm, so give it twenty minutes in the fridge.

8. Bake at 350F for 9 to 10 minutes. The edges should be set and the centers should still look underdone. Pull them there. They finish on the hot sheet, and that is what keeps the middles soft.

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Made these brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies? Leave a star rating and tell me in the comments whether yours came out chewy on the first go. The ratings are what help the next person decide whether the blotting step is worth the paper towels, and I read every single one.

4 from 3 votes

Chewy Brown Butter Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Chahinez Tabet Aoul

Chewy brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with crisp edges and soft centers. Blotting the pumpkin down to 70 grams is what keeps them from baking up cakey.

Prep: 20 minutes mins

Cook: 10 minutes mins

Total: 45 minutes mins

Servings: 18 cookies

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Ingredients 

US CustomaryMetric

 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 3/4 cup unsalted butter browned and cooled slightly, reduced to about 145g
• ▢ ⅔ cup dark brown sugar
• ▢ 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• ▢ 2 large egg yolks room temperature
• ▢ 1/2 cup pumpkin puree about 70g blotted/dried pumpkin puree
• ▢ 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 & 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• ▢ ½ tsp baking soda
• ▢ 1/2 tsp salt
• ▢ 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• ▢ 3/4 cups semisweet or dark chocolate chips/chunks

Instructions 

• Preheat oven to 350°F then line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Brown the butter:

• In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat until it foams and small brown bits appear. Remove from heat, transfer to a large bowl and let cool to room temperature completely about 15-25 minutes.
  3/4 cup unsalted butter

Prep the pumpkin:

• Spread pumpkin puree on paper towels and blot until it seems more dry and thick (It'll be about 70g or about 1/3 cup thick paste).
  1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• Add the brown sugar, and granulated sugar to the cooled down brown butter and mix until smooth.
  ⅔ cup dark brown sugar, 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• Add egg yolks, blotted pumpkin, and vanilla extract. Mix until combined.
  2 large egg yolks, 2 tsp vanilla extract
• In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Fold dry ingredients into wet until just combined. Avoid over mixing. Stir in chocolate chips or chunkss
  1 & 3/4 cup all-purpose flour , ½ tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 3/4 cups semisweet or dark chocolate chips/chunks
• Scoop about 2 tbsp dough per cookie onto parchment-lined baking sheet.
• Bake 9-10 minutes, until edges are set but centers look soft. If you want more of a wow factor, add in some extra chocolate chips or chocolate chunks to the top of your cookies as soon as they come out of the oven.
• Let cookies sit on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

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Notes

Blot to a number, not by feel. Start with about 115 g of pumpkin puree and press it between paper towels until the scale reads 70 g. That is roughly a 40% water loss, and it is the single thing standing between chewy and cakey. No scale? Blot until the puree holds its shape on the towel and stops leaving a wet ring.

Browned butter loses weight. Three quarters of a cup goes into the pan and about 145 g comes out once the water has cooked off. If you come up short, top it up with a little plain melted butter to hit 145 g rather than browning more.

Storage. Airtight at room temperature 3 to 4 days, refrigerated up to 1 week, frozen up to 3 months.

Nutrition

Calories: 159Calories | Carbohydrates: 19g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 42mg | Sodium: 100mg | Potassium: 44mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 10g | Vitamin A: 1325IU | Vitamin C: 0.3mg | Calcium: 16mg | Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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