Brown Sugar Cookies

Ugh.  Another failed recipe today that I had high hopes for.  I hate it when that happens.   So, momentarily defeated, I decided to turn to my friends at America’s Test Kitchen because they never let me down!  I found this recipe for brown sugar cookies and oh my gosh are they amazing!!  They are like the cookie part of a chocolate chip cookie but amped up with browned butter, dark brown sugar and a generous coating of brown sugar on the outside.  I have never used browned butter before.  It seemed easy enough.  Melt the butter and wait until it turns brown.  Let me warn you to keep a close eye on it.  It goes from yummy brown butter to bitter burnt black butter fairly quickly.  The Simply Recipes website gives a good step by step demonstration on how to do this.  I know this is an extra step, but I think the browned butter makes such a difference in the complexity of the flavor of this cookie.  It’s so worth it!   The rest of the batter is just like making chocolate chip cookie dough, only instead of adding chips, you roll the dough into balls and roll them into a brown sugar mixture.  This final hit of brown sugar provides extra flavor and creates a nice sugar crust on the outside of the cookie.  While the outside is a bit crisp, they are perfectly chewy on the inside, as all cookies should be.  And, don’t you just love the cracks in the exterior that make these cookies look wonderfully old-fashioned?  So, while failed recipes are frustrating and even maddening, they are always a lesson learned and sometimes they may even lead to something great.  I wouldn’t have tried this recipe until who knows when and right now I am eating one of these delicious cookies as I type wondering where they have been all my life!

14 Tbsp unsalted butter

2 cups packed (14 oz) dark brown sugar divided

1/4 cup (1 3/4 oz) granulated sugar

2 cups plus 2 Tbsp (10 2/3 oz) all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 large egg plus 1 yolk

1 Tbsp vanilla

Melt 10 tablespoons butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat.  Do not use a nonstick/dark pan or it will be difficult to see the color change.  Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly, until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes.  Transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl.  Add remaining 4 tablespoons butter and stir until completely melted.  Set aside for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In shallow baking dish or pie plate, mix 1/4 cup brown sugar and granulated sugar until well combined; set aside. Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder together in medium bowl; set aside.

Add remaining 1 3/4 cups brown sugar and salt to bowl with cooled butter; mix until no sugar lumps remain, about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl; add egg, yolk, and vanilla and mix until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl. Add flour mixture and mix until just combined, about 1 minute. Give dough final stir to ensure that no flour pockets remain.

Working with 2 tablespoons at a time, roll into balls. Roll half of the dough balls into the sugar mixture to coat.  Place dough balls 2 inches apart on the baking sheet, repeat.  I got 9 balls/sheet so I made 3 batches.

Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are browned and still puffy and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft (cookies will look raw between cracks and seem underdone), 12 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Do not overbake. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes.  Transfer cookies to wire rack and cool to room temperature.

Source:  The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook:  2000 Recipes From 20 years of America’s Most Trusted Cooking Magazine

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I am so happy to have received the Versatile Blogger Award from Choc Chip Uru of Go Bake Yourself!  Have you ever checked out her site?  She has the cutest blog and some of the yummiest looking treats!  I can’t help but admire her passion for sweets!

I was also nominated by Sugar Craving Baker for this award!  Another great fellow blogger, a newbie like me, who is all about sweets!

Defining this award: “It is a great way to introduce different bloggers to each other and to promote quality blogs that awardees and their readers may not have discovered otherwise.”

Thank you so much Choc Chip Uru and Sugar Craving Baker!

And here are the rules of this awesome award

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.
2.  Include a link to their blog.
3.  Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
4.  Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.
5.  Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.
6. In the same post, include this set of rules.
7. Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination by posting a comment on each of their blogs.

7 things about me….Hmmm….

1.  I have lived in Palatine (a Chicago suburb) my whole life (outside of college)

2.  Pretty much all Disney movies make me cry.

3.  I don’t like wine, but I really wish I did.

4.  My last supper would be:  crusty bread with olive oil and Parmesan cheese, crab cakes with an aioli dipping sauce, a wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, bacon and tomatoes, filet mignon crusted with blue cheese and red wine sauce, and creme brulee for dessert.

5.  My husband was in my first grade class.  My son is in first grade and I was looking at his class picture thinking his future wife may be there.  Okay, so the chances are remote.   Very remote..

6.  I had a pet snake in college.  I am allergic to pretty much everything but dogs.  Since we couldn’t have a dog, it seemed like the right thing to do.  She was a pink albino corn snake that I named Zoey.

7.  For about 10 years, I didn’t eat red meat or pork.  I only ate poultry and fish.  One day I had a taste for pepperoni, so I had some, and there was no going back!!

I am passing on this award to the following fabulous blogs!

Lynsey @ Lynsey Lou’s

Jennifer at LoveFoodCookFood

Books-n-Cooks

Jen @ Becoming Pigzilla

Sam @ Sweet Samsations

Kim @ Treats and Trinkets

Chrissy @ Stick a Fork in it

Eva @ Eva Bakes

Jaida @ Sweet Beginnings

The Chocoholic Wife

Jey @ The Jey of Cooking

Oishii

Katie @ So Tasty So Yummy

Nicole @ Prevention RD

Melissa @ I Was Born To Cook