Brown Butter Pantry Cookies

We are living in a really strange time with COVID-19 and you might be finding yourself with a lot of new found time on your hands to bake, a pantry full of mismatched ingredients, and 0 desire to venture outside. These cookies are your answer. They use my all time favorite cookie base with caramel notes from the brown sugar and browned butter, but when it comes to mix-ins, the world is your oyster! I happened to have different types of chocolate covered pretzels from a gift basket, off brand M&Ms, and a few Hershey’s Gold Bars. So guess what? They all went in the mix! Since pretzels are already salty, I opted not to top these off with more flaky sea salt, but you absolutely should if your mix-ins aren’t already salty. You could through in chocolate chips, pretzels, potato chips, peanut butter morsels, oats, nuts, whatever you have on hand!

The most important thing is getting your dough right. And that all starts with the browned butter. First you’re going to melt your butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Continue to cook the butter, stirring frequently, until it starts to bubble. Once it starts bubbling, keep going! Then it will foam. When you are stirring the foamy butter, you will begin to see little bits of brown floating around. Let the butter get nice and toasted and remove from heat. You do not want your butter to burn.

You’ll let your browned butter cool a bit while you make the rest of your dough. I definitely recommend using an electric mixer or stand mixer for this dough. When you incorporate the sugar with the browned butter, and then with the eggs, you really need to mix the batter well so that it is fully incorporated, lightens in color, and thickened. You can definitely still make this with just a whisk, but your cookies might not firm up the same way since the dough probably won’t thicken the same way by hand. Which is still fine, but the texture will be a bit different and they will spread out more in the oven. If you do use a whisk and do this by hand, make sure to rest your dough in the refrigerator instead of room temperature to help firm up the dough even more.

Print Recipe

Brown Butter Pantry Cookies

These cookies use whatever mix-ins you have around (chocolate chips, chocolate covered pretzels, raisins, nuts, you name it!) in a brown butter cookie dough

Course: Dessert

Keyword: cookies

Servings: 20 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups mix-ins, whatever is in your pantry! (I used a mix of chocolate covered pretzels, Hershey’s Gold Bars, and M&Ms)
• Flaky sea salt if not using salty mix-ins

Instructions

• Cook the butter over medium heat in a saucepan, stirring frequently. The butter will melt, then bubble, then foam. After the butter browns, set aside to cool slightly.
• In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt).
• In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl using an electric hand mixer, combine the brown butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until fully incorporated.
• Add the eggs and vanilla and beat on medium speed until the mixture lightens in color and thickens slightly.
• Reduce the mixer to low and slowly add the dry ingredients, until just combined. Do not overmix.
• Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in your desired mix-ins.
• Let the batter sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes to allow the flour to absorb some of the liquid and for the batter to thicken.
• Preheat the oven to 375F.
• Use a 1-oz scooper to portion out the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet. Make sure the cookies are spaced out, as they will spread in the oven. If you are adding sea salt, sprinkle it on top of the cookie dough balls.
• Bake for 9-11 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown but the centers are still soft. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack (or be like me and eat one piping hot out of the oven).