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Dark Chocolate Pecan Cookies Recipe

These dark chocolate pecan cookies combine some of baking’s most popular ingredients like brown sugar, nutty brown butter, cinnamon, dark chocolate, and pecans. Certainly a line-up that few cookie lovers can resist! Browning the butter is a quick extra step requiring the stove, but the flavor is unparalleled. If it’s not the flavors and add-ins that reel you in, it’s the soft centers and slightly crisp edges. These cookies have it all!

COOKIE MADNESS!

Today I’m serving up dark chocolate pecan cookies, a new cookie recipe that was an instant hit with my taste testers. With so many tested cookie recipes in my back pocket, it was hard to choose the starting point for this dark chocolate pecan flavor. Should we use my regular chocolate chip cookies and add pecans? Or try a rendition of these dark chocolate orange icebox cookies? I tested a few options, but ultimately decided on a brown butter cookie base. THE BEST! My recipe for brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies was published in 2012 and has remained a favorite ever since.

And now it tastes remarkable with cinnamon, dark chocolate, and pecans!

Tell Me About These Dark Chocolate Pecan Cookies

  • Flavor: Brown sugar, nutty brown butter, and a hint of cinnamon add warm, inviting flavors that are always welcome during the fall and winter seasons. You’ll also enjoy plenty of rich dark chocolate and buttery pecans, which not only add more flavor but varying texture as well. If you gravitate toward dark chocolate more than sweeter milk chocolate, you’ll adore these cookies. These are a lot of the same flavors we love in dark chocolate cranberry almond cookies, too.
  • Texture: Each bite is loaded with crunchy pecans! The centers of the cookies are soft-baked and the edges crisp up beautifully. If you want pools of melty chocolate throughout the cookies, use quality chocolate, just like we do in dark chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies. Chocolate chips contain stabilizers which prevent them from melting in the oven. Instead, reach for Ghirardelli or Bakers brand bittersweet chocolate bars—they’re sold in the baking aisle. I use Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bars in this recipe.
  • Ease: Browning the butter and chilling the cookie dough in the refrigerator certainly add time, but neither are difficult steps. Almost immediately after browning the butter, begin mixing the dough together. Since we’re using melted (browned) butter, you do not need an electric mixer—a whisk and rubber spatula do the trick. After the dough comes together, chill it before scooping and baking the cookies. Without time in the refrigerator, this cookie dough will spread into greasy puddles.

Learn About Browning Butter

Brown butter is simply melted butter with a nutty, almost caramelized flavor brought on by gently cooking it on the stove. If you’ve never browned butter before, take a minute to review my How to Brown Butter guide. In less than 10 minutes, the butter sizzles, foams, and cooks into a vastly flavored ingredient you can use in today’s dark chocolate pecan cookies, pecan sugar cookies, brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies, apple blondies, brown butter berry tea cakes, and brown butter pound cake. For more uses and all of my success tips, see the How to Brown Butter guide linked above.

Overview: How to Make Dark Chocolate Pecan Cookies

. Chop up your chocolate into bite-size pieces and give the pecans a rough chop, too. Have both ready to go.

Success tip: Brown the butter in a light-colored skillet or pot if you have one. If not, check the butter’s doneness by spooning some into a glass or white bowl.

Combine the wet & dry ingredients, and then chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator.

Order of chilling/shaping dough: You may notice that we scoop the brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies dough into balls before chilling and that’s because the toffee chips make the dough extra crumbly. After chilling, it’s pretty difficult to roll/scoop that dough into uniform balls. Today’s recipe, which uses a similar dough base, isn’t nearly as crumbly so it is best to chill the dough before shaping.

I hope you enjoyed learning about how this recipe came to life. It’s always so much fun to publish new cookie recipes!

Prep Time 230 mins
Cook Time 13 mins
Total Time 4 hrs 3 mins
Cuisine:
Courses:
Servings: 36
Description

These soft, yet crisp dark chocolate pecan cookies combine some of baking's most popular ingredients like brown sugar, nutty brown butter, cinnamon, dark chocolate, and pecans. For best success, review recipe notes before starting and don't skip chilling the cookie dough.

Ingredients You’ll Need
  • 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g)
  • 1 cup (200g)
  • 1/2 cup (100g)
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 2 and 2 1/2 cups (313g)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 4 semi-sweet -ounce or bittersweet chocolate bars (226g total)
  • 1 cup (130g)
Instructions
  1. 1
    Set out a medium heat-proof bowl because you’ll need it at the end of this step. Slice the butter into Tablespoon-size pieces and place in a light-colored skillet or large pot. Light colored helps you determine when the butter begins browning. (See note if using a dark skillet or pot.) Melt the butter over medium heat and stir or whisk constantly. Once melted, the butter will begin to foam. Keep stirring/whisking. After 5-7 minutes, the butter will begin browning and you’ll notice lightly browned specks begin to form at the bottom of the pan. It will have a nutty aroma. Once browned, remove from heat immediately and pour into the bowl, including any solids that have formed on the bottom of the pan. (You want those solids for flavor.) Cool brown butter for 5 minutes. Don’t cool longer than that because the butter will begin to thicken and, as a result, the cookie dough will be difficult to mix and its texture will be very crumbly.
  2. 2
    Whisk the brown sugar and granulated sugar into the brown butter and then whisk in the eggs and vanilla extract. Set aside. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the chopped chocolate and pecans, then stir together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. Dough will be greasy, thick, and even slightly crumbly.
  3. 3
    Cover cookie dough and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours and up to 3 days before baking. (You can also freeze the dough balls, see Freezing Instructions below.) If chilling for longer than 2 hours, allow the dough to sit at room temperature for at least 20-30 minutes before rolling and baking in the next step. The cookie dough is quite firm otherwise.
  4. 4
    Towards the end of chill time, preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
  5. 5
    Roll or scoop the dough into balls, 1.5 Tablespoons of dough each. I recommend a medium cookie scoop. Place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets and bake for 13-14 minutes or until the edges appear set. (Tip: If cookies aren’t spreading by the 10 minute mark, remove pan from the oven, carefully bang it on the counter to help induce some spreading, and then return it to the oven to finish baking.)
  6. 6
    Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
  7. 7
    Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Keywords: brown sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, pecans
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