Brown Butter Toffee Cookies

Chewy salty nutty goodness in these… But gah, it took quite a while to get here! I’m glad to finally share these toffee cookies that are brown butter! Brown butter in the toffee and brown butter in the cookie dough too! 

First, I need you to know that when you bake these cookies they are going to spread like crazy and be really misshapen. It’s OK; you’re going to fix this to the best of your ability and most of them will be wonderful and look perfectly pretty before serving them. The ones that refuse to comply are yours for snacking 😉 

Recipe Origins 

The toffee recipe is a rather new addition to the blog though I’ve been working on it for a few years. The idea was to take a standard, straightforward toffee recipe and brown the butter. This took some fiddling. I brought in a little acid (the apple cider) to balance out the flavors and get me an ideal texture (all heavy cream gave me a chewy caramel rather than hard toffee). 

The cookie dough is one you’ve already seen here before though (with some slight changes to accommodate the toffee): these brown butter egg yolk cookies. After exhausting my cooking library trying to figure out which would be the best base, which included several attempts with my bakery style chocolate chip cookies (and trying to brown the butter), it became clear that there was only one dough that could hold up to the toffee’s texture and be brown butter based.   

Recipe Ingredients 

For the toffee

Butter: unsalted & cold. 

Brown Sugar: light brown sugar worked better for me. The dark made the toffee just a tad more sticky. 

Salt: fine sea salt. 

Apple Cider (fresh): not apple cider vinegar, just fresh unfiltered apple cider. You can sub this for a tablespoon and 2 teaspoons water mixed with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. 

Heavy cream: or heavy whipping cream. 

Vanilla: pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste. 

For the cookies (in addition to the above)

Sugar: fine granulated, nor organic. 

Egg yolks: from “large” eggs. We aren’t using the egg whites. 

Baking powder & soda: to leaven the cookies. Check they are fresh. 

Flour: all purpose flour or a combination of bread and cake flour (half of each). 

How to Make Brown Butter Toffee Cookies

Make the toffee

Have a small cookie sheet or baking pan lined with parchment nearby. The hot toffee will cool on this pan. 

Brown the butter in a pot: I suggest a light colored pot so you can see the bits turning the right shade of brown and know when to proceed. 

Add the salt, sugar, apple cider, and heavy cream and stir. It will bubble up, be careful! 

Cook the mixture until it reaches 300 F; keep a laser, candy, or instant read thermometer nearby to keep track of the temperature. If you go beyond 300F the toffee will turn bitter. 

As soon as it’s done cooking, add the vanilla. It will bubble up again, stir quickly! 

Pour it onto the prepared pan and gently smooth it into an even layer. Let cool completely. 

Once it’s cool you can break or chop it up. This step can be done up to two weeks ahead of time; just store the toffee in the fridge. 

Make the cookie dough 

Brown butter again; this time in a light colored frying pan. 

Once browned, immediately transfer it to a bowl. Stir in the salt and vanilla. 

Let it cool to room temp then transfer to the fridge; you want it to cool until it’s the texture of softened/room temperature butter, so solid but not hard. 

Set it in a large bowl and add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy. As you beat the color will change.

Beat in the sour cream: 

Add the egg and beat until well combined. 

Stir in the flour and baking soda/powder. 

Chop up the toffee into bits that are about ‘bean sized’ and stir it into the dough. 

Chill the dough at least overnight but ideally for a day. 

Bake the cookies 

Line the cookie sheets with parchment (a little grease keeps it from sliding around). 

Use a 1.5 cookie scoop to portion the dough onto the pans. Leave a lot of space between them – the more space, the easier it’ll be to nudge them back into disk shapes. 

Bake until golden; the longer you bake the better flavor on the edges (thank you malliard reaction) but also the spread is more. 

Straight out of the oven use an upside down round container to reshape the cookies. Sprinkle the tops with flaky sea salt. 

FAQ & Troubleshooting 

These cookies are horribly misshapen and spread everywhere!! 

… I know. After a dozen or so batches I have to tell you that this is just going to happen, it’s part of the process. The alternative was to either sacrifice the texture of the cookie itself (which I wasn’t willing to do) or not share the recipe at all (which seemed unfair, they are reparable! And SO GOOD). Just bear with me, use the upside down container to reshape them and they’ll be good. 

How long should the dough chill? 

On average a day, so 24 hours but you could do as short as an overnight stint. I like to leave mine for two but generally I get the same result whether I’ve chilled for 8 hours or 48. 

Can I make the cookies and freeze them? 

If you want to leave them even longer, make the dough and chill it overnight, then shape the cookies and place on a parchment lined plate or tray. Freeze until hard, about 20 minutes then transfer to an airtight container for longer storage. 

When ready to bake, let them come to a cool room temperature. Don’t bake from frozen or the spread will be quite different. 

Alternatively you can bake them and once completely cool, store them in an airtight container and freeze. 

Would these cookies travel well? 

There’s a good chance the toffee softens and ends up sticking together and everything around it. I’d say if you really really want to ship them somewhere, use a lot of parchment between the cookies. 

Can I add chocolate? 

Gosh, YES. But probably swap out some of the toffee so the cookie doesn’t go completely whack in it’s spread =) 

Brown Butter Toffee Cookies Recipe

Brown Butter Toffee Cookies

Brown butter cookies with chunks of brown butter toffee; these cookies have chewy middles and crispy edges.

Prep Time: 30 minutes mins

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Cooling Time: 1 hour hr

Yields: 16 cookies

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Ingredients

Brown Butter Toffee (makes double what you need for the cookies)

• 113g or ½ cup unsalted butter (to be browned)
• 200g or 1 cup brown sugar preferably light
• 2 tablespoons fresh apple cider juice or substitute with: 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons tap water mixed with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream
• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

Brown Butter Cookie Dough

• 170g or ¾ cups butter unsalted
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 150g or ¾ cups brown sugar
• 50g or ¼ cups fine granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• 3 egg yolks from large eggs reserve the whites for another use
• 200g or about 1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• 100g toffee, chopped - about 2/3 cup from above
• Flaky sea salt for topping

Method

Make the brown butter toffee:

• Note: Have your ingredients ready and near your cooktop as once the butter is browned, the rest needs to be added asap.
• Prepare a small cookie sheet by greasing it lightly then placing a sheet of parchment on top.
• Set the butter in a light colored, heavy bottomed pot (like an enameled cast iron) over medium heat. Cook as the butter melts, then begins to sputter and separate. You’ll see little cream colored bits dropping to the bottom of the pan, stir frequently as those bits turn a toasty brown. Once all the bits have browned, add the sugar, apple cider, heavy cream and fine sea salt. It will bubble up as you do, stir it all in.
• Stir with a long wooden spoon frequently until the sugar melts and you can’t detect any granules. Keep a thermometer nearby, we’ll cook the toffee until it reaches 300 F. Be VERY careful, this is hot sugar and will burn you if it touches your skin. As soon as it gets to 300 F, remove from the heat and add the vanilla. Whisk until smooth then pour onto the parchment on the prepared pan. Smooth it into an even layer (it should not fill the pan and should be about a quarter of an inch thick). Let cool completely, this can take about an hour.
• If making the toffee ahead of time, once it’s completely cool, break it up and set it in a ziplock bag in the fridge.

Make the brown butter cookie dough:

• Set the butter in a light colored frying pan. Follow the same steps as above to brown the butter. Once it’s browned, immediately transfer to a heat safe bowl. Stir in the salt and vanilla and set in the fridge to chill for about an hour. We’re aiming for a soft consistency; rather like softened or room temperature butter.
• Set the butter in a large bowl and add the sugars (brown and granulated) to the bowl and use a hand mixer to beat until light and airy, this can take a few minutes. You may also make the cookie dough in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.
• Add the sour cream and egg yolks and beat until well combined. Then, add the baking soda, baking powder and the flour. Beat to just combine.
• Chop up the toffee into bits that are about pea or bean sized; too big chunks will cause the most spreading in your cookies so aim for smaller bits. Add the toffee to the dough and stir to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and set in the fridge overnight or for up to 48 hours (longer is better).
• When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper (use grease to help the paper stick to the pan). Do not use foil and do not bake the cookies directly on the pan.
• Scoop the cookie dough into mounds that are about 1.5 tablespoons of dough per cookie. If you like, add a bit of toffee on top of the dough so some is exposed. Leave loads of space between the mounds of dough as these. Will. spread.
• Bake the cookies until browned on the edges, about 12 minutes. The longer the cookies bake the crispier the edges will get and the more they will spread.
• They will be misshapen out of the oven, this is due to the toffee melting and pushing out the cookie dough. As soon as they are out and while still very hot, use a round container to gently nudge them back into a circular shape (this is kind of like cookie scooting but very gently or the cookies will tear, a spoon works too). Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and let cool completely on the pan.
• The cookies should be stored in an airtight container overnight and will be good for 3-4 days.

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