Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies

It’s that time of year again … when there are baked goods everywhere you turn. Which is perfect for me, because it means I can get my baking on non-stop and have plenty of ready, willing and able taste testers on call. For the second year in a row I held The Salted Cookie’s annual holiday cookie swap. This year I had 19 participants from Boston all the way down to Miami who are baking and shipping a batch of delicious cookies to a lucky swapper and receiving a batch from another. For my cookie this year, I had my friend Josh as my lucky recipient, who is a tough cookie critic. So I knew I had to bring out the big guns with solid holiday cookie recipe. I’ve never gone wrong with a browned butter recipe, and these Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies certainly did not disappoint. They were incredibly fast and easy to make, and held up in transport from North Carolina to Boston. Though I can’t say how long they lasted once they were opened!

There are all different types of holiday cookies that I like to make, ranging from fast and easy to family recipes to decorative cookies. When I was younger, my mom, uncle and Grandma used to all bring their mixers to my Grandma’s kitchen one day in December and bake nonstop for hours and hours until they had so many different types of cookies that they would assemble these huge cookie trays that would go to all different places, with the two biggest trays sticking around for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day desserts. I do this on a smaller scale around the holidays, baking as many cookies as I can and sending them off to people over the course of the month, as well bake cookie trays for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The key to a good cookie tray is having both variety in flavor and textures. I always start with a solid base of chocolate chip cookies, and now these Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies would make a great cookie base as well.

These cookies are incredibly flavorful, given they only have a few ingredients. Plus, the fact they are supposed to have giant cracks in them means all of them will come out perfectly every time. Genius.

For this year’s cookie swap, I knew that I needed a cookie that was both easy and flavorful and would also last the journey from North Carolina to Boston without ending up a box of crumbs. I decided on a cookie that was going to be soft coming out of the oven, so that even if it firmed up a bit over the few day UPS journey, it still wouldn’t be too hard to eat. Which sometimes happens when I bake sugar cookies, which are great the first two days but then get too crunchy for my liking.

I also went to Target and picked up lots of fun holiday-themed placemats, dish towels and a bunch of cookie boxes from the $1 section. It’s a super easy way to package up your treats in a fun way and keep them in one piece.

This cookie swap has been such a fun experience the past two years, and I can’t wait to start baking and sharing with you all the recipes that come out of it this year. In the meantime, if you are looking to get a head start on your holiday baking, definitely whip up a batch of these Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies. They will definitely get you on Santa’s nice list this year!

Print Recipe

Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies

Yield: 36 Cookies

Prep Time: 10 Minutes + 30 Minutes to Chill

Cook Time: 20 Minutes

Total Time: 1 Hour

Packed with flavor and ready in under an hour, these are the perfect treat to add to your holiday cookie trays!

Ingredients:

• 10 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2½ cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt

For rolling

• ½ cup powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Whisk the butter over medium heat in a saucepan until it melts and begins to foam. Continue whisking until the butter turns a light amber color. Pour the warm butter into a bowl, making sure to scrape all the bits from the pan and set aside to cool.
2. Sift together the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt - and set aside in a separate bowl.
3. Using an electric hand or stand mixer, beat together the granulated sugar, light brown sugar and cooled browned butter until combined. Mix in the eggs and vanilla until smooth. Scrape the sides of the bowl down before adding the remaining ingredients.
4. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet batter while mixing on a low speed just until incorporated. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes, or up to an hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the powdered sugar in a small bowl. Use a small-cookie scoop, scoop even-size balls of dough and roll each in the powdered sugar before placing them on a sil-pat or parchment-lined baking sheet at least two inches apart. Press the cookies down lightly with your fingers before baking at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes until the cookies are lightly golden.
6. Let the cookies sit on the tray for a few minutes to finish setting before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Enjoy!