Brown Butter Pecan Skillet Cookie
One pan, no scooping, crisp at the edge and deliberately underbaked in the middle. Serve it with a spoon per person.
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total
- 40 min
- Makes
- One 10-inch skillet, serves 8
What you need
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, plus 1 yolk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2.25 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1.5 cups dark chocolate chunks
- 1 cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped
- Flaky salt, for the top
Method
-
Brown the butter
Melt the butter in a light-colored pan over medium heat, swirling, until the milk solids turn golden and it smells like toasted nuts, about 6 minutes. Pour it into a bowl, solids and all, and cool for 10 minutes.
-
Beat in the sugars
Whisk both sugars into the warm butter and keep whisking for a full minute. Add the eggs, yolk and vanilla and beat until the mixture looks glossy and slightly paler.
-
Fold the dry
Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt just until no streaks remain. Overworking now makes the cookie cakey instead of chewy. Fold in the chocolate and pecans.
-
Press and bake
Press the dough into a buttered 10-inch cast-iron skillet. Bake at 350°F for 22 to 25 minutes; the edges should be set and the center should still look slightly wet.
-
Underbake on purpose
Pull it while the middle wobbles. Carryover heat in cast iron finishes the job over the next 10 minutes, which is exactly what makes the center gooey.
-
Serve warm
Scatter flaky salt over the top, rest 10 minutes, and serve straight from the pan with vanilla ice cream.
Weigh your flour
2.25 cups measured by scoop can vary by 40 grams between two people. 280 grams on a scale gives you the same cookie every time.