These chocolate chip Bourbon honeycomb cookies are pretty spectacular.
Full of homemade crushed Bourbon honeycomb candy and chunks of dark chocolate, they’re a fabulous cookie for a cookie swap, to leave for Santa, or for you to nibble on while you’re waiting for him to arrive.
Another one to check out is my chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies that are gluten free too.
For ease of browsing, here are all my cookie and bar recipes. Thanks for stopping by!
Where I Got the Idea for These Cookies
I know you are here because you are in dire need of one or seven of these little guys, right? And let me tell you, the end result is worth every step you have to take along the way. I promise.
Before I get on with the recipe, I want to acknowledge my friend Viviane from Chocolate Chilli Mango.
Putting honeycomb candy in chocolate chip cookies was her most excellent idea, and I just had to run with it.
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If you saw these cookies in your Facebook feed, wouldn’t you want to make them, too?!
How to Make Them
Like most cookies, these aren’t really hard to make at all. You’ll use The Creaming Method to put the dough together.
The basic ingredients for these cookies are all very easy to find, and you may own most of them already.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- browned butter, chilled: take 1 stick of butter, brown it, then chill it until it’s solid again. Read my post on how to make browned butter and/or watch the video in this post about browning butter. You can also use 1 stick of “whole” butter if you don’t want to use browned butter.
- dark brown sugar: you can use light brown sugar if you’d rather, or if you don’t have dark brown
- vanilla paste or extract: rounds out the flavors and adds a nice mellow note to the cookies. Use paste or extract as desired
- kosher salt: brightens and focuses the flavors and counteracts any bitterness from the chocolate and Bourbon
- egg: provides some structure, aids in browning, and adds a little to the rise. You’ll need 1 large egg
- all purpose flour: provides bulk and structure
- baking soda: I use baking soda here primarily to balance the acidic honey and molasses (found in the brown sugar). It does not really affect the rise in this case. Don’t substitute baking powder
- chocolate chunks: chopped chocolate. Your favorite for eating. A mix of dark and milk is nice, but use what you like
- honeycomb candy: chopped fairly finely. Use my recipe or your favorite. Or buy some ready made.
- flaky sea salt for finishing: I love topping cookies with just a touch of flaky salt. Don’t go overboard here. Seriously just a few flakes are enough to provide the occasional “zing” on the tongue. Smoked salt is especially nice to go with the Bourbon.
Here’s a litte more info about the two “specialty ingredients” I used in this recipe.
Cloister Honey
The first is Cloister Honey, based in my hometown of Charlotte, NC, and their very boozy Bourbon Honey made with Woodford Reserve Bourbon.
Because why not use the best, right?
Videri Chocolate
The other ingredient that I used because it is both delicious and local is Videri Chocolate.
You, of course, can and should use your favorite semi-sweet and/or bittersweet chocolate in your cookies.
I used Videri because it’s local to me.
Procedure
- Cream together the solid browned butter, dark brown sugar, honey, salt, and vanilla until fairly light.
- Beat the egg and add that, mixing well until combined.
- Whisk together the flour and baking soda.
- Mix in on low until well-combined.
- Add the chopped chocolate and honeycomb by hand, sort of kneading it into the stiff dough.
- Portion out between 12-24 cookies, and bake.
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Pro Tip
PRO TIP: Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour and up to 36 hours before portioning and baking. This allows the flour to completely hydrate and for the flavors to deepen before baking.
About That Honeycomb Candy
One cannot very well make Honeycomb Cookies without some Bourbon Honeycomb. You can absolutely use your favorite recipe, but I admit I’m partial to the one I used.
You can make it using regular honey and just add in a splash of bourbon, but the Cloister honey is truly delicious, and if you can get some, I recommend it.
You can switch up the flavor in the candy and cookies by using other infused honeys, too.
Does the Candy Melt in the Oven?
That’s a good question. You can see in the photos that any candy peeking out around the edges of the cookies will melt some.
But the dough also acts as an insulator, so the honeycomb inside, closer to the center of the cookies will retain some of its light crunchy texture.
The combination of crunchy candy, light and airy candy, and mellow chocolate chunks works really well and gives these cookies a lot of textural contrast.
A Note About Measurements
I strongly encourage you to buy a scale, especially for making my recipes which are almost all written by weight. I do try to add volume measurements when I can, but these are much less accurate, by nature.
For accuracy and consistency, using a scale, whether in grams or ounces, is the way to go.
This is the scale I use and recommend:
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.
You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.
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Thank you so much for taking the time!
Chocolate Chunk Honeycomb Cookies
Video
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 stick butter 4 oz, browned and cooled/chilled so it’s a soft solid*** SEE NOTES
- 6 oz 3/4 cup, packed dark brown sugar
- 1 oz Cloister Honey Bourbon Honey (or any honey)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or extract)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt you can use less, but don’t use less than 1/4 teaspoon
- 1 egg at cool room temperature
- 8 oz all purpose flour 2 barely scant cups measured by whisking the flour, spooning it in the measures and sweeping off the excess with a straight edge. Do you see why you need a scale?
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 8 oz total roughly chopped bittersweet semi-sweet and/or dark milk chocolate
- 1 ½ oz slightly generous 1/2 cup crushed/crumbled Bourbon honeycomb candy (or any honeycomb candy, store bought or homemade)
- sea salt for sprinkling (optional but really lovely, smoked salt goes especially well with the Bourbon)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and place racks in the upper and lower thirds of your oven.
- If you don’t know how to brown butter, I can help. You’ll have to do this step ahead because the butter needs time to chill back down in the fridge so it is somewhat firm but not hard.
- Combine re-solidified brown butter, dark brown sugar (or light brown sugar and molasses), honey, vanilla and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer. Cream until light and fluffy, scraping bowl as necessary. This will take about 5 minutes.
- Lightly beat the egg and add to the mixer. Beat again until light, another 2 minutes or so. Scrape the bowl as necessary.
- Whisk the flour and baking soda together and then add to the mixer. Mix on low until flour is mostly mixed in, then increase the speed to medium and mix an additional 30 seconds.
- Scrape bowl. This is a fairly stiff batter, so mix in the chopped chocolate and honeycomb by hand. I actually ended up sort of lightly kneading the dough to make sure all the mix-ins were evenly incorporated.
- Scoop cookies onto parchment-lined pans. I scaled my dough at roughly 1.5-1.6 oz per cookie since I wanted 18 cookies. If you are feeling very anal, do what I did and weigh your dough. Then divide that weight by the number of cookies you want–12-24. I wanted 18.
- Press each mound of dough down just slightly and sprinkle with a small amount of finishing salt of your choice, smoked or otherwise.
- If you make 18 cookies like I did, bake for 6 minutes and then switch the pans and bake an additional 5-6 minutes. Baking times will vary slightly depending on how many cookies you decide to make. When done, cookies will be golden brown around the edges and lightly brown and set on the tops.
- Remove pans from the oven and slide the parchment onto cooling racks. Don’t even attempt to eat one for at least 10-15 minutes. That honeycomb will be molten, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself.
- Cool completely.
- Sit on your couch and eat all the cookies. Or you can store them, tightly sealed at room temperature for up to a week. Because of the honey and molasses in them, they will stay chewy.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
Nutrition
Hi, y’all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hopefully also learned a thing or two.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to read today. I hope you enjoy the cookies.
Take care, and have a lovely day.
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Hands down this is the cutest recipe I’ve ever tried. I’ve never had the person posting it be so concerned with my personal safety as you cautioned me to not handle the hot butter and honeycomb..these were delicious I found that placing them in the fridge for 24 hours (I call it cold cooking) took them to a new level, and crumbling honeycomb on top with the salt as soon as they left the oven was an added bonus
I am so pleased that you like them, Liz! And I’m very glad you did not hurt yourself. lol 🙂 Thanks so much for trying my recipe and commenting. I appreciate it, and I hope you find more recipes here to love as well. 🙂
Would maple syrup be a good substitute for the honey I keep forgetting to get some at the store, I want to make these for work
Yes. Obviously a different flavor profile, but it will still be delicious! Sub 1:1 with no problem. Enjoy!
Oh My Goodness… I seriously need these in my life. They look amazing, Sissy!
xo
Thank you, Sissy! They are pretty excellent! =)
I’ll see Stacy’s seven and raise it another seven, please! YOWZA these cookies are incredible.
Haha, Betsy! I see we have a bidding war going here! =)
One? ONE? I’ll take the offered seven, please! Those things are fabulous, Jenni. I love everything about them!
Seven it is, Stacy! 🙂 These really may be the best cookies ever!