Brown Butter Snickerdoodles Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What happens when you brown butter for cookies? ›

“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.”

A snickerdoodle is a type of cookie made with flour, fat, sugar, and salt, and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Eggs may also sometimes be used as an ingredient, with cream of tartar and baking soda added to leaven the dough.

What Is Brown Butter? Brown butter, also known as buerre noisette in French, is made by heating butter until the milk solids caramelize, imparting a golden color and toasted, nutty flavor. The French technique is an easy way to ramp up the flavor of regular butter without adding any extra ingredients.

Let the brown butter cool sufficiently.

Using hot, melted butter will yield greasy dough and cause the cookies to spread too much when baked. By allowing the butter to solidify before adding it to the dough, you're able to bake the cookies immediately—no chill time required.

1Add butter to a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-low heat. As the butter melts, continuously swirl it around the pan. The butter will quickly go from brown to burnt, so stay close to the pan when you do this. 2Continue swirling the butter over the heat.

Stay close to your pan because the trickiest part of browned butter is getting it just brown enough—not too dark or too light. Too light, and it won't have the characteristic nutty flavor and aroma. Too dark, and it may start to taste (and look) burnt.

A few cookbooks explain that snickerdoodles are German in origin. They state that the cookie's name comes from the German word shneckennudel (which is a kind of cinnamon bun). Others trace its origin to New England's tradition of whimsical cookie names.

The Joy of Cooking claims that “snickerdoodle” comes from “Schneckennudel,” a German word that literally means “snail noodles.” Schneckennudels don't have anything to do with snails or noodles, though—they're actually delicious-looking German cinnamon rolls.

Snickerdoodles are known for their soft and chewy texture, along with a sweet, cinnamon-sugar coating. The primary ingredients in Snickerdoodle cookies include butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt, all rolled into a cinnamon sugar mixture.

Brown butter adds a rich, slightly nutty, caramel flavor to baked goods that makes everything extra delicious. If you haven't made brown butter before, don't you worry. You've come to the right place.

What is another name for brown butter? ›

Beurre noisette (French pronunciation: [bœʁ nwazɛt], literally: hazelnut butter, loosely: brown butter) is a type of warm sauce used in French cuisine. It can accompany savoury foods, such as winter vegetables, pasta, fish, omelettes, and chicken.

You can substitute it for regular butter, whether your recipe calls for the butter to be melted or chilled. Browned butter can add a subtle nutty flavor to baked goods (like chocolate chip cookies) and pan sauces, it makes roasted vegetables taste decadent and rich, and it's excellent in a cake frosting.

Browning the butter adds a rich and nutty flavor to the cookies, enhancing the overall taste and creating a more complex flavor profile. The nuttiness of the browned butter complements the sweetness of the chocolate chips, resulting in a delightful and indulgent treat.

Browning the butter gives the cookies a more intensely nutty, butterscotch flavor.

Not only is the color different, but so is the taste. Adding brown butter results in a rich and nutty flavor that is partly born out of the blending of the butter with the molasses found in the brown sugar. Here at Tasting Table, we love a good chocolate chip cookie made with browned butter and have our own recipe.

During the melting process, the butter's water content evaporates, leaving only fat behind. This results in a more concentrated flavor and a softer texture in your cookies. It also helps distribute the fat more evenly throughout the cookie dough, resulting in a more uniform cookie.

If you've never tried baking with brown butter before, you're seriously missing out. It lends cookies and cakes a wonderful toasty flavor that elevates them into something seriously special.

“Room temp butter is able to hold onto air,” Szewczyk says. “You can mechanically shove air into it by creaming. Warm butter is not able to hold onto it, so you're going to get a denser dough.” When using warmer or melted butter, cookies will struggle to lift and lighten, resulting in a cakier texture, like brownies.