Nearly two months ago, I had the pleasure of trying Brown Butter Cookies (The Original) from The Brown Butter Cookie Company when my friends took a weekend trip to Central California and brought me some cookies.
My friends were RAVING about the cookies, saying how good they were and how I must try them. But as someone who doesn’t care for cookies as much as she cares about doughnuts and cupcakes, I was thoroughly impressed.
Never in my life did I think cookies could taste so amazing. The sweet cookies just melt in your mouth! I’ve never had better cookies. I now understood why friends loved these cookies and even went out of their way to have me try them!
Friends share good cookies with other friends.
Which is why I am sharing this recipe with you! A week ago, one of my friends who brought me the cookies said there’s a copycat recipe of these cookies online. As soon as he said it, I burst out saying, “WHERE?!!” He gave me the link to this recipe at This Week for Dinner, and then I started busting out batches of these cookies.
Now I’m able to share these delicious cookies with everyone! And I also don’t have to order them online or drive all the way to Central California for a dozen.
Salted Brown Butter Cookies
Slightly adapted from This Week for Dinner. Makes 13-18 cookies.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- Sea Salt
Directions:
Start off by putting the brown sugar and vanilla extract into a small bowl and set aside.
In another mixing bowl, use a whisk to mix together the all-purpose flour and baking powder. Set aside.
Melt the butter in a saucepan on low heat. Constantly stir the butter to make sure the butter doesn’t burn. You’ll see foam start to form but keep stirring for 6-10 minutes until the butter turns a dark brown color. You’ll begin to smell this irresistible aroma of browned butter when the butter is ready!
Pour the butter into a medium-large mixing bowl, then add the brown sugar and vanilla extract. Mix together until well-combined.
Slowly add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl, constantly stirring to make sure the flour is evenly distributed. Keep adding the flour and keep mixing until you have a nice dough that is easy to shape.
Note // At this point, you may have dough that is too runny or dough that is too dry! I’ve made these cookies twice now and have experienced both these cases.
If the dough is too runny: refrigerate the dough for about 20 minutes, and then try shaping the dough.
If the dough is too dry: add more melted (it doesn’t have to be browned on the stove) butter to the dough and stir it in. I used a 1/8 cup (which is 1/4th of a stick) and melted the butter in the microwave.
You can either roll the dough into small balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet -or- you can use a tablespoon measuring spoon and scoop tablespoons of dough onto the sheet. Because of this, you may end up with anywhere between 13-18 cookies. When I shaped the cookies into balls, I got 13 cookies and 18 when I used the tablespoon.
In the photos above, I used tablespoons. I had these cute heart-shaped tablespoons that were perfect for this job!
After they are laid out on the baking sheet, sprinkle them with a little sea salt. Gently press the sea salt into the cookies to make sure they stay especially if you’re making them round!
Now depending on the size of your cookies, the amount of time you will bake the cookies for will change. The recipe I used said to bake for 12 minutes, but I found that was too crispy for my heart-shaped cookies. I put them in for 10 minutes.
For the ball-shaped cookies, I put them in for 15-18 minutes.
Let them cool on the baking sheet and then serve. Store in an airtight container.
