Chocolate chip cookies | Alessandro Desantis

Ingredients

Melt the butter in a light-coloured saucepan over medium-high heat and cook, swirling constantly, until the milk solids turn deep golden brown and smell nutty, about 5 minutes.
Transfer the browned butter to a bowl, whisk in the ice-cold water to replace the moisture lost during browning, and refrigerate until cool and just starting to set, about 20 minutes.
Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and fine salt.
Chop the chocolate with a serrated knife into a mix of chunks and shards, then sift out and keep the fine dust separately.
Whip the eggs, granulated sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer on high speed until pale and ribbony, about 5 minutes.
Beat in the cooled butter and the brown sugar on low speed until just combined.
Fold in the flour mixture with a spatula until a few streaks remain, then fold in the chocolate chunks and the chocolate dust until evenly distributed.
Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least 24 hours and up to 72 hours.
Preheat the oven to 175 °C (static) and line two baking trays with parchment paper.
Scoop the cold dough into balls of about 55 g and space them well apart, 6 per tray.
Bake one tray at a time for 13–16 minutes, rotating the tray halfway, until golden at the edges but still soft in the centre.
Sprinkle with flaky salt as soon as they come out of the oven and let them cool on the tray for 5 minutes before moving them to a rack.

Brown butter adds toffee notes; whipping the eggs and sugar gives a glossy, crackly top; the long rest lets the flour hydrate and deepens the caramel flavour.
Hand-chopped chocolate melts into streaks and pools in a way chips, which contain stabilizers, never do.
The dough balls freeze well; bake them straight from frozen, adding 2–3 minutes.
For a chewier cookie, replace one of the eggs with two egg yolks.