Browned Butter Oatmeal Cookies
4March 26, 2013 by Meg G.
Apparently, browned butter is a thing. (And it’s not just an oops I burned the butter thing.) It’s true. Joy’s doing it. Heidi’s doing it. Deb’s been doing it for years. So I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to try a recipe that involves turning buttery yellow butter (yep) into a brownish, nutty, aromatic, flavor-packed secret ingredient. But you can thank Liana Krissoff and the From Scratch Club cook-along book club for this little ditty.
These cookies involve some seriously delicious ingredients – browned butter, brown sugar, toasted oats, vanilla, and chocolate. How could you go wrong? (Hint: you can’t!) Here goes!
Browned Butter Oatmeal Cookies – adapted from Liana Krissoff’s Whole Grains for a New Generation
Ingredients:
- 4 cups raw rolled oats
- 1/2 cup spelt flour
- 1.5 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Method:
Preheat the oven to 375F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, toast the oats, stirring frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes, until fragrant. Let cool completely.
Put 2 cups of the toasted oats in a food processor and grind as finely as possible (about a minute or so). Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, and process to combine. Set aside.
Wipe out the sauté pan and put the butter in it. Heat over medium-low heat until melted, then continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the bits of solids at the bottom of the pan start to brown, 5 or 6 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool to luke warm.
In a large bowl, beat the brown sugar together with the browned butter until well combined. Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Stir in the ground oat mixture, then the oats and the chocolate chips. The dough will be crumbly. I found that the back of a spoon was most helpful for stirring in the choco chips.
Shape into slightly flattened 2-inch balls and place them 1.5 inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
Bake until golden brown at the edges, but still soft in the centers, about 10-12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. Let cool on the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool.
I swapped out Liana’s suggested brown rice flour for some spelt flour, since I’ve already got about 10 kinds of flour in my pantry and – wouldn’t you know it – brown rice flour is not one of them. I also subbed in chocolate chips instead of the suggested raisins. (No explanation necessary, am I right?)
These cookies have a nice crunch to them. If you’re not such a huge fan of the crunchy cookie, try taking them out a few minutes earlier, warming them up, or even dipping them into your afternoon tea or coffee, biscotti-style. Enjoy!
Nice work, I might try putting chocolate chips in the them next time too!
I highly recommend it! : )
These look so good!!!
Thanks, Lindsey! They ARE good! ; )