Brown Butter & Vanilla Glazed Cookies
These brown butter & vanilla cookies are soft, chewy and topped with a tasty vanilla glaze & loads of sprinkles. They're super easy to make & are a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
Servings: 12 Cookies
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
- Small Saucepan
- Cookie Scoop
- Baking Trays
- Large Circular Cutter
Ingredients
Vanilla Cookie Dough
- 200 g Unsalted Butter
- 1 tsp Toasted Milk Powder (See Notes)
- 160 g Light Brown Sugar
- 125 g Caster Sugar
- 1 Large Egg
- 2 Egg Yolks
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 285 g Plain Flour
- 15 g Cornflour
- ¾ tsp Baking Powder
- ¾ tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda
- ½ tsp Table Salt
Brown Butter Glaze
- 50 g Unsalted Butter
- 250 g Icing Sugar
- 70 g Whole Milk
- 1 tsp Vanilla Paste
- A Pinch Of Table Salt
- Sprinkles
Instructions
Cookie Dough
- Start by browning 120g of the butter. To do this, chop the butter into evenly sized pieces then place into a medium saucepan. Place over a medium heat & allow to melt, stirring regularly with a spatula. Keep cooking, until the butter starts to foam, smells nutty & you can see that the milk solids in the bottom of the pan have turned golden brown.
- Once the butter has browned, take it off the heat & immediately stir in the toasted milk powder. Transfer the butter to a bowl & leave to cool to room temperature. In the meantime, chop the remaining 80g of butter into small pieces & leave to soften at room temperature.The brown butter should take around 30 minutes to cool.
- Next, add both of the butters, the light brown sugar & caster sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached. Beat on a medium speed for 1-2 minutes, until combined.Be careful not to over mix the butter & sugar, we don’t want to add too much air into the cookie dough as this will affect the baked cookies.
- In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg, yolks & vanilla together. Then slowly pour into the butter, with the mixer running on medium speed. Stop mixing once the eggs are just incorporated.
- Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda & salt into the cookie dough then mix on a low speed until just combined.
- Next, chill the cookie dough in the fridge for 30 minutes, so that it firms up slightly.
Shaping
- Using a cookie scoop (or a spoon), portion the chilled cookie dough into 12 equally sized portions. Each should weigh around 70 grams.
- Using your hands, roll each portion of cookie dough into a ball then place them into an airtight container. Chill the cookie dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Baking
- Preheat an oven to 175°c/155°c fan (350°f/311°f).
- Place 3-4 balls of cookie dough onto a lined baking tray, making sure that there’s plenty of room between them.
- Bake the cookies for 8 minutes then open your oven door, lift up the baking tray inside the oven by a few inches then let it drop down against the oven rack. Use enough force so that the cookie starts to deflate. (This is the “Pan Banging” method.)
- Bake for a further 2 minutes then repeat the pan banging process.
- Bake for another 2 minutes (bringing the total bake time to 12 minutes) then remove from the oven.Once baked, the cookies' edges will be golden brown but the middles will still be soft.
- Using a large, round cookie cutter, gently scoot each cookie into a perfect round shape then leave to cool completely on the tray.
- Repeat the cooking process with the remaining cookies, baking 3-4 cookies at a time.
Brown Butter Glaze
- Place the butter for the glaze into a saucepan & set over a medium heat. Cook until browned then pour into a mixing bowl & set aside to cool.
- Next, sift the icing sugar into a mixing bowl then add in the brown butter, milk, vanilla & salt. Whisk to make a smooth, thick icing.
- Top each cookie with a heaped teaspoon of the glaze then use a palette knife to spread out to the edges. Top the cookies with sprinkles then leave to set.The icing should take around an hour to set at room temperature but if your kitchen is warm, you may need to stick the cookies in the fridge for 20 minutes or so to firm the icing up.
Notes
1. Cooking In An Aga – Bake the cookies in the baking oven on the bottom set of runners. Use the boiling plate to brown the butter.
2. Brown Butter - For an in depth guide to making brown butter & for more ways to use it, take a look at our brown butter guide.
3. Toasted Milk Powder – Adding toasted milk powder to the cookie dough adds extra brown butter flavour! Adding this is optional though. For more info on toasted milk powder, check out our guide.
4. Eggs - This cookie dough uses a large egg. This should weigh around 50 grams out of the shell.
5. Chilling The Dough - So that the cookies don't spread out too much as they bake, the balls of dough need to be chilled in the fridge for at least 2 hours or for up to 2 days.
6. The Pan Banging Method – The way we bake these cookies, is by using a technique called “Pan Banging”. This was created by Sarah Kieffer (The Vanilla Bean Blog) & is used in this recipe to give the cookies a crinkled texture.