Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie

This Brown Butter Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie is everything you love about classic chocolate chip cookies but with no room temperature butter, no chilling required, and baked in a cast iron skillet. Cool and cut for chocolate chip cookies with crisp, caramelized edges, or grab your best friends and vanilla ice cream and eat the giant skillet cookie warm from the pan.

So read on for detailed tips and tricks about brown butter and baking cookies in a cast iron skillet. Or just grab your chocolate chips, hit that purple Jump to Recipe button, and let’s make cast iron skillet cookies!

Ingredients

There are no special ingredients in this skillet chocolate chip cookie, but its rich flavor comes from brown butter, brown sugar, and a healthy amount of vanilla. Use any chocolate chip or combination of chips you like – I usually recommend Ghirardelli.

Cast iron baking

I recently adapted my blueberry almond cake for pears for a class I co-taught with Jen at Pike to Plate. And as we were eating the cake for dessert, her husband asked if I baked in a cast iron skillet often.

At the time, the answer was no – I make the perfect chicken breasts in a cast iron skillet, and its ability to go seamlessly from stove top to oven makes a great bacon frittata. But the only baking I always did in cast iron is my skillet cornbread.

This changes with this skillet chocolate chip cookie. Browning butter in cast iron is a touch harder because you can’t see how brown your butter bits are. But you’re rewarded with one fewer thing to clean, an already greased baking pan, and one that retains heat so well that you get these firm, golden cookie edges. Yum.

Variations and substitutions

This recipe is a variation of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. You can see tons of other variations I’ve done like my mini chocolate chip cookies, s’mores cookie bars, double butterscotch chocolate chip cookies, or chocolate chip M&M cookies. For other variations for this chocolate chip skillet cookie:

• Add toasted pecans, chopped chocolate, or mix in espresso powder for a mocha version.
• Use mini skillets for individual-sized mini skillet cookies. Serve warm!
• This chocolate chip cookie dough recipe can be scooped for individual cookies, but you should chill the cookie balls before baking.

Recipe tips and tricks

The rate-limiting step in this cookie recipe is the butter, so start there. Melt your butter in a 9 or 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Continue cooking until it foams and smells nutty, with browned bits at the bottom. If you are having trouble telling if it’s getting too toasty, it’s better to the err on the side of under-cooking.

Pour the hot butter into your mixing bowl with the brown sugar and granulated sugar. Let the butter cool for 5 minutes or so so it doesn’t scramble the egg before beating the sugar and butter. This is a good time to start heating your oven, throw in a load of laundry, or play your Wordle for the day.

The beauty of brown butter recipes is that you can make them with a stand mixer, hand mixer, or by hand. Plus you don’t have to wait for the butter to come to room temperature.

Beat in the egg and then the vanilla, beating for a minute after adding each and scraping the bowl down as necessary. Add the dry ingredients and mix in on low or by hand until just combined.

Add the chocolate chips to the bowl, and mix them in by hand. Spoon the chocolate chip cookie dough into the cast iron skillet – be careful if it is still warm – and smooth into the pan. It doesn’t need to be perfect as it will even out.

Bake at 375°F for 16 to 20 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the center is just barely firm. Your skillet cookie will continue to cook a bit as the pan cools.

You have two choices for serving – you can grab spoons, and enjoy it warm. Or let it cool slightly and slice into 16 wedges.

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