Brown Butter Snickerdoodles Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Does browning butter make a difference in cookies? ›

In his recipe, he made the ingenious discovery that browning the butter before adding it to the mixture would give the cookies a much more pronounced nuttiness.

Why is my butter not browning? If using American butter, there is a higher percentage of water that needs to evaporate before the proteins in the milk solids will start to brown. Stick with it, the butter will turn eventually.

In about 5–8 minutes from when you started (depending on the amount of butter you used), the butter will turn golden brown. The foam will slightly subside and the milk solids on the bottom of the pan will toast. It will smell intensely buttery, nutty, and rich.

Adding too much butter can cause the cookies to be flat and greasy. Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly. You should use unsalted butter to control the salt content, but if you only have salted on hand, reduce the amount of added salt accordingly.

Check for doneness: To check if the butter is browned to your liking, while the butter is in the saucepan, clear away some of the foam and spoon a little of the butter onto a white plate. Account for evaporation: Brown butter reduces in volume by 20-25% as water content cooks off.

If you add too much flour, your cookies may end up dry, dense, or crumbly and barely spread.

Your butter will smell and taste burnt. When your butter is perfectly browned it will smell slightly nutty, warm and a bit caramelized. It shouldn't look black.

The key to browned butter is getting it browned just enough, which requires some attention. Too dark, and the flavor will taste burnt. If you don't cook the butter long enough, it won't have the deep, nutty flavor you're after.

It's important to remove the butter from the heat as leaving it in the hot pan or on the stove can push it over the edge from deliciously golden brown to burnt. If your butter goes too far and burns sadly there is no saving it.

Can I refrigerate brown butter? ›

You can (and should!) make brown butter in advance and store it until needed. Pour brown butter into a heat-safe bowl, then after it cools to room temperature, transfer it to an airtight container. Brown butter will keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks or in the freezer for up to three months.

You can use either salted or unsalted. We like using unsalted butter, especially for baking, because you can control the quantity of salt in your dish.

OVEN IS TOO HOT

Oven temperatures are a crucial factor in baking. If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.

Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.

Using too much flour will make your cookies too cakey, so try reducing the flour amount by two tablespoons. Avoid using cake flour instead; try a mix of all-purpose flour and bread flour for a more dense and chewy texture. Using too much baking powder. According to the science geeks at Serious Eats—we love you!

“Browning all the butter removes the water content, but the dough still needs some of that water to come together. Browning only some of the butter is enough to achieve that signature nuttiness, while the remaining unbrowned butter provides enough water content for the dough to come together.”

Unsalted butter gives you complete control of the overall flavor of your recipe. This is especially important in certain baked goods where the pure, sweet cream flavor of butter is key (butter cookies or pound cakes). As it pertains to cooking, unsalted butter lets the real, natural flavor of your foods come through.

Brown butter is good on almost everything, including steak. It has a warm nutty flavor. Burnt butter is always dreadful. Because it's burnt.