brown butter snickerdoodles

I love snickerdoodles! When I was little, they were my favorite kind of cookie. In kindergarten, my best friend Samantha and I got to choose the name of our reading group (which was made up of just the two of us, the smarty pants early readers) and we chose The Snickerdoodles. They were clearly very influential to my five year old self… and my current self. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a stress baker, and during nursing school I was churning out several batches of cookies per week just to try to stay sane. I always brought them to school/clinical to share with friends, and I giggle a little thinking back to the time I brought snickerdoodles to the hospital for everyone. One of my cute friends ate one, then looked at me thoughtfully and said, “How do you do that? I mean, I can get mine to snicker, but I can never get them to doodle.” To this day I have no idea what either of those words was supposed to mean, but it makes me smile.

Anyways… I love trying new recipes for favorite foods. And since brown butter is pretty much just like crack, and makes everything amazing, I was excited to try this one after I saw it on Pinterest. These cookies are wonderful! The brown butter adds such a delicious richness to them, and the texture is perfect. (If you can’t tell, I’m sort of obsessed with the textures of my foods.) I made giant balls of dough with my cookies, and only ended up with about twenty cookies from the batch, but I’m sure you could get more out of it if you were willing to be more sensible with your portion sizes. It is totally worth the extra step to brown the butter for these babies. Go for it!

Brown Butter Snickerdoodles
adapted from Ambitious Kitchen

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon sized pieces
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
splash of milk (if needed)

For rolling mixture:
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. To brown the butter, add it to a saucepan and melt it over medium heat, whisking frequently. After the butter begins to foam, watch it carefully and continue whisking until the butter begins to brown. Immediately remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer to prevent burning. Set aside to cool.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside. Once the butter has cooled, mix in the sugars, followed by the egg and egg yolk, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. If necessary, add a splash of milk to help the dough cling together better.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cinnamon and sugar. Divide the cookie dough into balls, and roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place on a baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 8-11 minutes (mine took closer to 12 because they were giant), or until lightly browned on top. Let cool on baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.