Brown Butter Snickerdoodles Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the white chunks in brown butter? ›

The milk solids, those white foamy bits, will begin to brown as the butter continues to cook. They're the key to the delicious flavour, so you'll want to ensure an even browning by continually whisking the butter or swirling it in the pan. Avoid letting those milk solids burn at the bottom.

Begin stirring to move the butter around as it melts. Once melted, the butter will begin to foam and sizzle around the edges. Keep stirring. In about 5–8 minutes from when you started (depending on the amount of butter you used), the butter will turn golden brown.

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 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.

As butter melts, it will begin to foam. Watch butter closely. The color will progress from a bright yellow to a golden tan, then quickly to a deep golden brown. When you smell a nutty aroma, butter is deep golden brown and browned milk solids appear in bottom of pan, take pan off the heat.

But the process of browning butter—simple as it may seem—requires some particular vigilance. A few seconds too long on the heat and this deeply flavored butter can turn from creamy and caramelly to bitter and burnt.

Over-Browned Butter. Under-browned butter won't carry as much flavor, and won't bring that lovely nuttiness to your bake. It will look lighter as you'll see in the photo below. Over-browned butter will taste bitter or even burnt, and be darker brown in color, as you can see in the photo below.

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.

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. Sugar sweetens the cookies and makes them an enticing golden brown.

Why are my brown butter cookies dry? ›

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

Too much flour in your brown butter chocolate chip cookies can make them dry, tough, crumbly, or too thick, none of which are good.

What are the brown specks in brown butter? They are the milk solids in the butter that have undergone caramelization during the browning process.

Phase 5: Cooling – After the butter is browned, pour it into a glass container to cool. You'll notice a pool of dark bits at the bottom of the pot. Don't leave those behind! Those little specks hold all the flavor.

Your butter may have some brown specs (sediment) in it. That's okay! But if your recipe calls for clarified brown butter, you will want to strain it using a cheesecloth or fine-mesh sieve to remove those specs.

Those little flecks of brown you see in your browned butter are toasted milk solids. They're FULL of flavor, so be sure to scrape them all in with your browned butter.