These mini chocolate chip cookies are my favorite little bite sized treat! They're super soft and chewy, with tons of extra flavor from the nutty brown butter! Like my classic brown butter chocolate chip cookies, but in mini, pop-able form!
Mini cookies are perfect for snacking at home (my preference) or as a fun party dessert! This recipe makes about 75 mini cookies, but since they're so tiny you might want to double the batch if you're cooking for a crowd!
I will be honest though....these mini chocolate chip cookies are pretty annoying to make. The dough is super simple, but the rolling into tiny balls does get old after about 25. But the process goes much faster if you have a friend helping you out (or even better, a couple of kiddos who want to get their hands dirty).
You might also like these cookie dough cupcakes or these mini chocolate cream puffs!
Jump to:
Ingredient Notes
You just need a handful of simple ingredients to make these mini brown butter chocolate chip cookies!
Cornstarch - Since these cookies are so small, a little bit of cornstarch helps keep them from spreading too much!
Mini Chocolate Chips - Obviously you need mini chocolate chips for your mini cookies! My favorite are the Ghirardelli semi-sweet mini chips, but you can use whatever brand you prefer!
Brown Butter - My favorite ingredient of all time is brown butter!! Brown butter is just unsalted butter that has been melted and gently cooked to bring out a toasty, nutty flavor. If you've never made brown butter before, you can check out this post with all my tips for how to make brown butter!
Browning the butter is [technically] optional but the extra time is SO worth it! The biggest problem I see people run into when using brown butter in cookies, is not letting the butter cool completely to room temperature before adding it to the dough.
I recommend making the brown butter the night before you want to make the cookies so that it has plenty of time to fully cool!
The complete list of ingredients and amounts is located in the recipe card below.
How to Make Mini CCC's
Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or hand mixer, cream the room temperature brown butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until smooth and creamy.
Add in the egg and vanilla extract and beat until light, fluffy, and pale in color. This should take 2-4 minutes which seems like a long time, but you'll see a huge difference in the texture afterwards. [Notice the color difference between pics 2 and 3!]
Add in the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt and mix until thoroughly combined. The dough should be soft but not very sticky.
Gently fold in the mini chocolate chip cookies.
Scoop the dough into small 1 teaspoon sized balls (you can just use a 1 teaspoon measuring spoon!) and then press a few extra mini chocolate chips on top!
Arrange the cookie dough balls 1-2 inches apart on a lined baking sheet.
Note: there is typically no need to chill the cookies before baking. However, if your kitchen is very warm and the dough is starting to melt a bit, pop the tray in the fridge for 10 minutes before baking.
Bake for 6-8 minutes or until the cookies are just set on top. (They might look a bit under baked, but the cookies will continue to bake as they cool).
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then remove and let them finish cooling on a wire rack.
You can also use these mini chocolate chip cookies as a topper for these adorable cookie dough cupcakes!
Tips for Perfect Cookies
Measure your flour correctly! It's most accurate to use a kitchen scale, but if you're measuring by volume you want to spoon and level! Fluff up the flour a bit with a spoon, and then spoon flour into the measuring cup. Once it's overflowing, use the back of a knife to level it off. Don't ever pack flour into the measuring cup or you'll end up with way too much! Improperly measured flour can lead to dry, crumbly cookies that don't spread.
Make sure your oven is the proper temperature! Use an oven thermometer to make sure your oven is exactly 350°F. If the oven is too cold, the cookies will spread too much and if it's too hot they centers won't bake all the way through. For example, my oven is about 20 degrees off. So I have to set the oven to 370°F in order to get it to bake at 350°F.
Use a lightweight, light colored baking sheet for best results! Believe it or not, a lighter pan makes the cookies bake more slowly than a dark pan, which helps keep them from spreading too much. My favorite pans for baking cookies are:
You also want to use either parchment paper or silicone mats on your cookie sheet to help keep the cookies from spreading.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time, on the center rack. This will ensure all your cookies cook evenly and the bottoms don't burn. Then let the cookie sheet cool completely between batches. This ensures the cookies cook evenly and don't spread too much by being put on a hot pan.
Always under-bake the cookies! If you slightly under-bake the cookies (so the centers are still soft when you remove them from the oven), they'll stay soft and chewy for days!
Do the cookie scoot! In order to get perfectly round cookies, use a large cookie cutter to gently scoot them around as soon as they come out of the oven!
Recipe FAQ's
Store the baked cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days!
Yes! Freeze the pre-rolled mini cookie dough balls on a baking sheet, once frozen transfer to an airtight container and freeze for up to 6 weeks. The frozen dough can go straight from the freezer to the oven, just add 2-3 minutes to the cooking time.
Of course not! You can absolutely substitute regular unsalted butter. I just love the nutty flavor that brown butter adds.
Tips for Success!
For best results I always recommend using weight measurements (especially when baking) because it's the most accurate. Kitchen scales are super affordable and also reduce the number of dishes you have to do! However, all my recipes also include US customary measurements for convince. Use this chart to convert measurements for common ingredients!
Substitutions: In all my recipes, I've included substitutions that I know will work, but I cannot guarantee results if you substitute ingredients that I have not recommended. [For example, granulated sugar and honey are indeed both sweeteners but they have very different properties so they can not always be swapped 1:1. Using honey in a cookie recipe that calls for granulated sugar will yield a giant mess.] In the recipe card you'll find links to the specific ingredients/brands that I use.
A note on salt: I almost exclusively use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt because it's the best all-purpose salt for cooking and baking. If you're not using kosher salt, consult this handy guide for a conversion chart! When in doubt, if you're using table salt just reduce the amount by half for baked goods. When cooking, I prefer to under-salt because you can always add more! If you've over-salted, adding a little bit of acid (like lemon juice) can help.
More Recipes You Might Like
If you love this recipe, please leave a star rating at the bottom of the page! This provides helpful feedback to both me and other readers.
Also be sure to add us as a trusted site on Google so that our recipes show up more in your searches!
For more delicious, scratch-made recipes you can subscribe to my newsletter and follow along on social media!
Recipe Card
Mini Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted brown butter, room temperature
- ¾ cup light brown sugar
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips, plus extra for decorating
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
- Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or hand mixer, cream the room temperature brown butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until smooth and creamy.
- Add in the egg and vanilla extract and beat until light, fluffy, and pale in color. This should take 2-4 minutes which seems like a long time, but you'll see a huge difference in the texture afterwards.
- Add in the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt and mix until thoroughly combined. The dough should be soft but not very sticky.
- Gently fold in the mini chocolate chip cookies.
- Scoop the dough into small 1 teaspoon sized balls and then press a few extra mini chocolate chips on top!
- Arrange the cookie dough balls 1-2 inches apart on a lined baking sheet.Note: there is typically no need to chill the cookies before baking. However, if your kitchen is very warm and the dough is starting to melt a bit, pop the tray in the fridge for 10 minutes before baking.
- Bake at 350°F for 6-8 minutes or until the cookies are just set on top. (They might look a bit under baked, but the cookies will continue to bake as they cool).
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then remove and let them finish cooling on a wire rack.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up 5 days.
Notes
Nutrition
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Cynthia says
I made this dough last night and kept it in the fridge before shaping and baking them this morning. They turned out great! My friends really liked them.
Some adjustments I made, which didn't really affect how the recipe turned out:
- I browned 130g of butter, some of it salted because I didn't have enough salted. And even so I still didn't have enough so I added clarified butter I had made before to match the weight.
- For the sugar, I used 100g of only brown sugar as the only sugar added. The cookies came out a bit too sweet for my liking, but probably because I added more chocolate.
- I didn't cream the butter with the other ingredients, it was still melted and it was taking too long to cool; I couldn't be bothered.
- I used 30 dark chocolate melts (105g) which I cut into sixths as I had no not-past-it's-best-before-date mini chocolate chips.
I baked them one tray at a time for 6-7 minutes each. I made 68, but still have some dough left because I was in a hurry in the morning. It's fine for the cookies to cool for just 5 minutes on the tray.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! 🙂