Brown Butter Chocolate-Caramel Skillet Cookie

Good morning loves. I hope this finds you well, rested and happy. If not, I hope we’re working on it with some tea…maybe morning stretches or binge-watching your favorite shows. It all works. You’ll get there.

I want you to think about this: melty ice cream and glossy pools of chocolate encased in a giant, chewy, slightly undercooked chocolate chip skillet cookie. Did I mention the brown butter situation? It’s the stuff of dreams, really.

In case you’re new to the skillet cookie scene (like I was…what took me so long?), let me lay out some of the advantages of this most baller of desserts. First, and frankly, it’s basically a cookie recipe that’s made giant. No special formulas or additives. I picked my brown butter chocolate chip cookie because I thought maybe it was feeling left out with all of my olive oil cookie fawning. Second, it’s sooo much easier than making cookies because you shove everything into the skillet and bake once. None of this set-the-timer-for-11-minutes-let-the-cookies-cool-and-transfer-to-a-cooling-rack shit. I like that.

This first half of the year has been filled with lots of highs, some lows, some really excellent tv viewing, exciting changes and uncertainty. We put one foot in front of the other, believe in ourselves and hope for the best. We’ve got this. We know we can weather the storms. And cookies help. We know this much to be true.

Before We Get Started:

• Bring Dessert. This is what you bring the next time someone wants you to bring dessert. The skillet cookie comes together quickly (lightening speed), bakes just a hair longer than a single sheet of cookies and looks pretty dazzling and seductive in that there cast iron skillet if I do say so myself.
• Skillet Size. The bake time recommended is perfect for a 10-inch cast iron skillet. If you use another vessel of a different size, you’ll need to adjust the bake time up or down accordingly.
• Browning Butter. Browning butter in a cast iron is dicey. I always urge you to brown your butter in a light-colored pan, especially if browning butter is new to your cooking repertoire. You need to see the milk solids turning into golden magic on the bottom of the pan and cast iron makes this process more intuitive than visual. However, if you’re feeling ballsy or browning butter is old hat, then brown your butter in the skillet that you’re baking the cookie in. End of story. As always, stand watch while your butter browns and give it your upmost attention. You can do it.
• Caramel Sauce. I went for bottled because I couldn’t be bothered. If you’re a purist (I respect you deeply), you can try this sauce here. Make sure you have extra on-hand to drizzle over the top or on a loved one if you’re feeling it.
• Cook Time. I undercook this skillet cookie. Non-negotiable in my house. I like things ooey, gooey. If you like your cookies a little firmer with a little more crunch, then feel free to go a few extra minutes but nothing more. She’ll cook + firm up a bit whilst sitting on the counter cooling. Have faith.
• Waiting to Serve. I hate doing this to you, but you’re going to have to wait 45 minutes (minimum!) to cut into the skillet cookie. You’ll serve her warm, but if she doesn’t have time to cool down, she’ll be a hot mess when you try to cut into her.
• Ice Cream. It’s not even optional to eat this without vanilla ice cream. End of story.

Let’s bake a skillet cookie, shall we?

Brown Butter Chocolate-Caramel Skillet Cookie

Serves 8-10

INGREDIENTS

• 1 stick, 4 ounces, unsalted butter
• 1 ¼ cup brown sugar (dark or light)
• 1/3 cup sunflower seed oil, or other neutral oil
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons milk (I used 2%, use what you have), room temperature
• 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 1/2 cups dark chocolate, chopped (feel free to sub in milk chocolate or semi-sweet)
• 2/3 cup caramel sauce
• Sea salt flakes for dusting on top, optional

Serve with hella vanilla ice cream!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Make sure you have a rack in the top third of the oven.
2. Put 4 ounces/1 stick of butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet and melt over medium heat. Once melted, crank up the heat to medium high. Stand by, stirring and watching. This isn’t the time to go and put your dry ingredients together. Watch yer butter. Small golden bits will start to settle on the bottom of the pan. Once this happens, take it off the heat and pour into a medium, heat-safe bowl to cool a bit.
3. Add the sunflower seed oil, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla to the browned butter once it has slightly cooled. Whisk together until thoroughly blended. It will be thick and sludge-like.
4. In another medium bowl, whisk together the bread flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt. Add the flour mixture to the brown butter mixture and mix until there are still some flour streaks to be seen. Add in the chocolate chunks/chips and mix until just combined.
5. If any of the butter in the bottom of the skillet has burnt whilst sitting in the warm pan wipe them away with a paper towel, otherwise leave the residual butter in the skillet. Gently press half of the cookie dough in the bottom of the skillet. Pour the caramel sauce on top and then put the remaining cookie dough on top, covering the caramel completely. Place on the top rack of the oven and bake for 17-20 minutes. Set on a cooling rack for at least 45 minutes prior to serving. The longer it sits, the easier it will be to get a good clean cut. Along those lines, use a sharp knife and clean the blade in between cuts if you want each slice to look its best.
6. Serve with huge scoops of vanilla ice cream. My dad says it cuts the sweetness. ;)
7. Tag me @displacedhousewife #displacedhousewife so I can see your skillet cookie — I can’t wait for you to try this!

On My Mind

• Holy. Smokes. Do I have a lot to say today. It’s been a bit since my last post and I email myself news stories and stuff that I think we all might be interested in…so some of these stories may be dated…but I’m hoping they’re new to you…and you find them interesting. I’ve missed you. I’m glad we’re here.
• First, my good friends Adam + Ryan (@husbandsthatcook) used my muffin recipe for inspiration and created this Blubarb Muffin. Make it. And tell me all about it. And tell them how much we love them. And now I want to make everything with blueberries + rhubarb.
• I would love to know your thoughts on Facebook. This article struck a cord with me. I’ve actually pulled away from Facebook because I don’t think it’s healthy. But maybe this is just me? I feel like everyone is trying to impress and it lacks authenticity. I would love to know what you think…
• If you’ve ever wanted to learn about baking sourdough, I’m obsessed with this book. It’s magic. I’m equally excited about this new book coming out from Emilie/The Clever Carrot: Artisan Sourdough Made Simple. Get it so we can bake bread together. It’ll be fun.
• Have you watched the movie Lion? I cried. Watch it.
• I love listening to Sheryl Sandberg speak. It’s always thoughtful and intelligent. I think she’s brilliant. And an amazing public speaker that always has the perfect words to let us now exactly how she’s feeling. What I wouldn’t give to articulate like that. Put on some fluffy socks and give this a listen. She also has a new book out that I can’t wait to get my hands on. Will you be reading it too?
• When we lived in China, one morning we woke up to a more polished Beijing than the one we had gone to sleep with. Overnight, all of the billboards had been changed to welcome attendees of the African Summit and the former heavily Photoshopped, cheesy ads promoting gothic-looking villas in the ‘burbs were gone. The factories were shut down and the daily gunk and pollution that weighed the city down gave way to crystal clear skies more familiar to my southern Californian childhood than the Beijing I’d grown to expect. All along the roadways were freshly planted flowers and trees. The traffic that clogged the ring roads was gone. Poof. Post-apocalyptic was a term I used to describe the heavily-polluted days when the sun couldn’t break through the haze and it oddly seemed equally fitting this week. It was the first time, but definitely not the last, that I would see Beijing transform itself overnight to impress foreign dignitaries. It was both creepy and impressive. This article (and this older one) brought me back to that week, when China heavily invested in countries throughout Africa focusing largely on those with abundant natural resources. We were there from 2006-9…look at China’s investments in African countries during that time…and then look up until now. It’s something to pause and think about how this will impact the world in terms of global politics, the environment and life in Africa.
• Can we drink wine and talk about the above? I have a lot more to say.
• We have to protect ourselves online. I think we’re all a little lax about this. Sort of like balancing our checkbooks, amiright? Read this article to see some simple ways to protect yourself. First thing I did? Stella gave me a sticker to put on my laptop’s camera.
• I mean, I just want to know how and who came up with this new way to pick the ideal lip color. And how on earth is the shopgirl at Sephora helping me with this?
• We’re better than this, aren’t we? The people paying off school lunch accounts should be canonized.
• I think that’s it for now. I’m eating lots of heavily salted, roasted (CRISPY as hell) broccoli…my garden isn’t giving us food yet but it’s growing bigger and brighter and greener every day…I’m hanging onto every episode of The Handmaid’s Tale (are you? let’s talk…) with equal parts excitement, awe over how beautifully it’s filmed and sheer horror at how relevant the storyline is…My chickens are laying lots of eggs and it’s not so hot that I’m lamenting hourly that I don’t have AC…The yard is green, we’re all healthy (knock on wood) and summer is looming on the horizon…Feeling busy with lots of projects and grateful daily for all of you. Please make this skillet cookie. And put your feet up. And be good to yourself.

Sending heaps of love + light!

R xoxo