Spiced chocolate chip cookies are THE go-to holiday cookies recipe. They combine the nostalgia of a chocolate chip cookie with the warm spices of the holiday.
The holidays are all about warm, nostalgic flavors. And these spiced chocolate chip cookies DELIVER. They’re adapted from my TikTok and Instagram viral salted brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe that has gotten me many a happy DM, so you know they’ve gotta be good.
Brown butter adds a nutty richness that works so well with our all-star spice team of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. And the warm, melty pockets of chocolate are juuust what we chocolate lovers need during the holiday season. Spiced chocolate chip cookies are the perfect holiday riff on a traditional chocolate chip cookie.
These spiced chocolate chip cookies are the kind of cookies that make your kitchen smell amazing and your home feel like a Hallmark movie. The familiarity + elevated feel make them perfect for a cookie swap, too. PLUS you don’t need a stand mixer or hand mixer here, we do it all by hand.
This post is all about spiced chocolate chip cookies (with brown butter).
Spiced Chocolate Chip Cookies (with Brown Butter)
Ingredients
- Unsalted butter. Go with the best quality butter you can get. Cabot is a great quality butter that’s affordable where I live.
- Light brown sugar. We use all brown sugar in this recipe to get a thicker cookie with wonderful caramel flavor. We don’t use white sugar at all – the molasses in the brown sugar gives you perfect chewy cookies with crispy edges! I like light brown sugar, but you could use dark brown sugar, too.
- Eggs. Eggs help bind together the cookies, give them a little lift, and make them wonderfully chewy and moist.
- Vanilla extract. Opt for real extract, not imitation.
- All purpose flour. Flour binds together the cookies. We use the perfect amount of flour for cookies that stay together, but are still gooey and chewy instead of puffy.
- Fine kosher or sea salt. If you are using a fine table salt, try using just 3/4 tsp. so that the cookies aren’t too salty.
- Baking soda AND baking powder. Baking soda helps the cookies spread just a little and get crispy edges and a chewy inside. Baking powder gives the cookies lift so they’re nice and thick. Together, they’re powerhouse leaveners!
- Chocolate chips and a chocolate bar. Go for a quality chocolate (I love Ghiradelli). Feel free to use any percent chocolate you like — I’m a fan of 60% to 80%.
- Ground cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and ginger. These are our spices! If you don’t have them, you can use cinnamon and then sub pumpkin pie spice for the nutmeg, clove and ginger.
- Flaky sea salt. We add flaky sea salt on top to give the cookies a great salty-sweet balance. You can get flaky sea salt at most grocery stores or on Amazon.
How to Make Brown Butter Spiced Chocolate Chip Cookies
1. Brown the butter: Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. The butter will simmer, then foam. Once it foams, look for light colored, solid specks at the bottom of the pan. Once these turn brown, remove from the stove and add one ice cube. You can also just use melted butter instead of brown butter!
2. Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.
3. Mix the wet ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the browned butter and brown sugar until well combined, then mix in the eggs and vanilla extract.
4. Fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients, adding the chocolate chips when almost all the flour is incorporated.
5. Scoop the dough into balls and place the dough balls on an ungreased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Chill for at least 2 hours, and up to 48 hours.
6. Bake on a sheet tray that’s greased or lined with parchment paper until the edges are golden brown and the center looks a tad underbaked. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy!
Tips for the best chocolate chip cookies
- Properly measure your flour.
- Measure by weight: I always use a kitchen scale to measure my ingredients and include the measurements in grams in the recipe so you can, too. You can get a pretty cheap scale on Amazon (I used a $12 scale for years and now use a $28 KitchenAid scale).
- Measure by volume: If you’re using a cup measure instead of a scale, first fluff the flour in its bag, then use a spoon to place it into your measuring cup. Level the flour off by scraping the flat edge of a knife across the top of the cup measure.
- Use a cookie scoop to get evenly sized, easy to scoop cookies. For this recipe you can use a 3-tablespoon or 2-tablespoon scoop. This is a great trio of scoops!
- Chill your cookie dough. Letting the dough chill in the fridge for two hours (and up to 48 hours) makes the cookies thicker and more flavorful.
- Add some chocolate chips on top of your cookies before or after baking. This gives the cookies an extra gorgeous, bakery worthy look.
- Underbake your cookies just a little. They should be golden brown on the edges, but still a little underbaked in the center. As cookies keep baking from residual heat when you pull them from the oven, slightly underbaking ensures your cookie won’t dry out.
FAQs
You can store the baked cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days. To keep them extra soft, add a slice of bread to the container.
You can use a pre-made pumpkin pie spice blend as a substitute for a similar flavor profile.
Absolutely! You can refrigerate the dough for up to 48 hours or freeze it for up to 3 months. If you are freezing, make sure to scoop the dough into balls first. Bake straight from frozen, adding an extra 1-2 minutes to the baking time.
If your cookies turned out thin, you might have not added enough flour, let the dough warm up too much before it went in the oven, or your baking soda or baking powder might be expired. To tell if your baking soda is expired, mix 1 tsp. baking soda with 3 TBS. vinegar. If it immediately fizzes, the baking soda is still active. To tell if your baking powder is expired, mix 1/2 tsp. baking powder with 1/4 cup hot water. If it bubbles, it’s still active.
If your cookies turned out super thick and puffy, you likely added more flour than the recipe calls for. Check out the tips above for how to best measure flour!
Sure! If you want more of a chai spice feel, reduce the cinnamon to 1 1/2 tsps and add in 1/4 tsp allspice and 1/4 tsp cardamom.
If you want SPICY chocolate chip cookies, swap the spices in here for 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper, 1/4 tsp. dried cayenne pepper and fold in some chopped crystalized ginger.
You could also sub in white chocolate chips for the regular chocolate chips!
More delicious recipes
- Feeling more cozy winter recipes? SAME. Check out holiday mint Oreo brownies, dirty chai cinnamon rolls, or maple miso brown butter blondies.
- Oh so you’re a chocolate fiend? You’ll love tahini caramel cornflake brownies, stuffed dark chocolate raspberry cookies, or brown butter miso chocolate chip cookie bars.
- Looking for super quick recipes? Try half-baked single serve chocolate chip cookie skillet, birthday cake blondies, or browned butter chocolate chip blondies.
If you make these cookies, please leave a rating and review below and tag me on Instagram or TikTok at @loaves.and.such!
Spiced Chocolate Chip Cookies (with Brown Butter)
16
large cookies, or 24 medium cookies30
minutes2
minutes10
minutesSpiced chocolate chip cookies are THE go-to holiday cookies recipe. They combine the nostalgia of a chocolate chip cookie, with the warm spices of the holiday.
These are super easy to whip up (you can use melted butter instead of brown butter if you’d like). And you can keep them in the freezer so you have warm, oven-fresh cookies all. season. long.
Keep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups (300 grams) all purpose flour
1 tsp. fine kosher or sea salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground dried ginger
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups (320 grams) packed light brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 TBS. vanilla extract
Heaping 1 cup (7 oz) chocolate chips, or chopped chocolate bar
Flaky sea salt to top
Directions
- First, brown the butter. Place the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. The butter is going to melt, then simmer then foam. Swirl regularly throughout the process so the butter cooks evenly.
Once the butter foams (6-10 minutes), you’ll start to see white specks at the bottom of the pan. These are milk solids! Once they all turn brown, pour the butter into a large bowl, making sure to scrape in the brown bits from the bottom of the saucepan (this is the brown butter flavor!). Stir in one ice cube to help cool the butter and restore some of the liquid lost when browning the butter. Set aside to cool slightly (so it won’t melt the sugar). - While the brown butter cools, take out a medium-sized bowl. Add the flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, baking soda and baking powder. Whisk thoroughly.
- Once the brown butter is slightly cooled, add the brown sugar and whisk until there’s no separation. Mix in the vanilla and eggs.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Switch to a spatula and fold in the dry ingredients until there are only a few streaks of flour left, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Portion your dough into balls using a 3-tablespoon scoop (70 grams) for large cookies, or a 2-tablespoon scoop (55 grams) for medium-sized cookies. Place on a parchment-lined rimmed sheet tray, cover with plastic wrap, and let chill in the fridge for at least two hours and a maximum of 48 hours.
- When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Space out your dough on a greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet and press a few pieces of chocolate or chocolate chips into the tops of the cookies.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes for large cookies, or 8-10 minutes for medium-sized cookies. The cookies are done when the edges of the cookies are golden brown but the center still looks underbaked. They’ll keep cooking from residual heat when you take them out of the oven.
Top with flaky sea salt right away so the salt sticks to the cookie, let cool for five minutes, and enjoy!
