Brown Butter Snickerdoodle Cookies
Okay, okay, I know I'm a bit early to the whole holiday cookie season... or am I? According to the lights strung around houses and streetlights around town, I'm weeks - no months - behind schedule.
Oh well. My timing will have to suffice. Because I couldn't wait to share these brown butter snickerdoodle cookies with you. I've had the idea to try my no-butter snickerdoodle cookie recipe with brown butter for a while now, but I just never got around to trying it. But then one day I did. And the results were everything I dreamed of and more.
And so I quickly got to work on this blog post to help get these snickerdoodle cookies into your digestive system as soon as possible. Because sharing is caring.
So I've officially decided that brown butter makes any cookie 100x better. Chocolate chip. Oatmeal. Snickerdoodle. All the cookies. Brown butter cookies rock my world. Especially because I don't really enjoy the taste of regular butter in my cookies.
Brown butter lends cookies a caramel + butterscotch + hazelnut undertone that's irresistible and magical and wonderful. And it only takes minutes to make. Two minutes more than it takes you to just melt your butter. SO worth it. Just brown all the butter you melt for anything you plan on making from here on out.
These brown butter snickerdoodle cookies are the epitome of thick and gooey cookies, ladies and gentlemen. So thick and gooey. And rich. And easy. So easy. And quick.
Brown the butter. Stir it with the sugars. Mix in the egg and vanilla extract. Add in the dry ingredients. Coat the dough in a cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake. Eat. With coffee or milk. Or any other liquid of choice. Done.
I mention in the instructions below that I don't chill my dough for this cookie recipe. I don't need to. My cookies come out thick and dense without doing so. But if you find your cookies are coming out flatter than your heart tends to desire, go ahead and chill that dough in the fridge for a while before baking the cookies.
I cut down on the sugar just a bit for these cookies, because I found that they didn't need that much once butter was used in place of oil .
And I also added cornstarch to these snickerdoodle cookies to really get that contrast of crispy edges and soft centers. You can literally feel that these cookies have an ideal texture when you break apart one of them. You'll know it well before a cookie even makes its way into your mouth.
Such soft centers, fluffy and pillowy, gooey and rich. And such a good chew to these cookies also. And such a generous coating of cinnamon and sugar. Such a good cookie.
Brown butter snickerdoodle cookie, you're quite the cookie, you.
brown butter snickerdoodle cookies
Yield: about 22 cookies
1 stick butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups packed flour
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Coating:
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a light-colored (so you can observe the browning) skillet, brown the butter: chop up butter and place into skillet over a medium flame. First, the butter will melt. Once butter melts, it will foam and bubble. Make sure to stir the butter every few seconds with a rubber spatula. After a few minutes, the bubbling will subside and golden specks will appear on the bottom of the pan and the butter will start smelling nutty. This means your butter is browned!
Remove skillet from flame right away and pour the browned butter into a mixing bowl to stop the cooking. Make sure to scrape in all the browned specks from the bottom of the pan. Warning: Butter should have golden/amber specks, not completely brown ones. If the butter is too browned, your cookies may have a burnt/bitter taste.
Let butter cool five minutes in the bowl and then stir in both sugars and mix well.
Add in the egg and vanilla extract and stir vigorously till mixture is smooth.
Stir together the dry ingredients right over the wet ones and mix everything together until just combined.
Round about a tablespoon of dough between your palms and then roll it around in the cinnamon-sugar coating. Coat the ball very well.
Repeat with the rest of the dough, spacing balls onto your prepared baking sheet evenly.*
Bake cookies for 8-9 minutes, or until a few of the tops just begin to crack. The cookies may not look done but will continue to bake and firm up on the cookie sheets after you remove them from the oven. Let cookies rest on sheets for 5-10 minutes before moving them so they can set.
These cookies are very soft and gooey on the day they're made, but won't stay very soft for more than two days.
*Note: I never have to refrigerate my dough for this recipe, but if you find your cookies are coming out too flat, chill the balls of dough until they're cold and hardened (about 40 minutes) before baking them. You may want to test one cookie out before you bake all of them.
