Browned Butter Creme Sandwich Cookies

Browned Butter Creme Sandwich Cookies  - rich and buttery.

I absolutely love the flavor of browned butter. If you've never tried this flavor, just image caramel notes combined with the luscious melt-in-your mouth texture of a butter cookie. We had a cookie exchange and these special little cookies were a big hit! I bet you'll be surprised to find that they only have 8 ingredients.

Taking my finished cookies to the cookie exchange in a fun tin :-) I was living in the UK during the Royal wedding and enjoyed bringing home some fun memorabilia.

To make the cookies

1. In a large bowl beat together brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy: 

• 3/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar

• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened

2. Add 1 egg yolk, blend well. 

3. Stir in 2 c. all purpose flour. 

4. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes to make the dough firmer and easier to handle when forming the cookies. You can make this day before and leave covered in the refrigerator. 

Using my cookie scoop to portion out the dough

To Form the cookies: With Sandwich cookies, it is important that both the top and the bottom cookie be the same size. I've found that the easiest way to do this is to use a standard scoop to measure out the dough.  In my case, my cookie scoop is meant for bigger cookies (chocolate chip) and I wanted to make smaller sandwich cookies. I'll show you below what I did. 

1. Use a cookie scoop to get a nice amount of dough. 

2. For these cookies, I wanted them to be small and petite, so I divided each ball of dough in half. This gave me a good idea on how much dough should be for each. 

3. Place the rounded balls of dough on a greased cookie sheet or a silicon baking liner (I love Silpat!).   See photo below. 

4. Using a fork - press the dough balls down to get the nice marks on the surface

5. Bake at 325F for 10-13 minutes or until they start to get golden brown. You really don't want to overbake these. 

Pressing the dough balls with a fork to give them a decorative look

To make the Browned Butter frosting: 
1. Place 2 Tb butter (no substitutes) into a small saucepan or skillet.

2. Heat over medium heat until the butter turns a light golden color. Depending on how hot your range gets, this can take a few minutes. Watch carefully because once the reaction starts, it will go quickly. If you burn it (it gets the color of bacon), then discard the butter (save to use on something else?) and try again.  All the flavor in the creme comes from this step, so there is no point in ruining all your hard work for only 2T of butter!!

*What you are actually doing in this step is applying heat to the dairy proteins in the butter and driving the Maillard browning reaction which is what develops the delicious flavor. This is also the reason you can't use margarine because it is made from vegetable oil which doesn't contain protein, therefore it won't brown.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine:

• browned butter
• 1 1/4 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2-3 Tb milk

Blend until the creme reaches a spreading consistency. 

To assemble the cookies: 

1. Take 2 of your delicious cookies and spread about 1-2 tsp of creme between them. 

2. Sandwich together and enjoy!!

Cookies can be made and frosted and the entire sandwich (or just the cookies) could be placed in the freezer in a freezer-safe bag or container for 3-6 months.