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Gifts from the Cupboard: Brown Butter Sugar Cookies
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Gifts from the Cupboard: Brown Butter Sugar Cookies
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Yesterday when I set out to bake, I could not face the Acme one more time. The frantic South Philly mamas clutching every bar of bittersweet chocolate and tube of red frosting to their sweatered breasts, while "Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" clangs through the atmosphere, is like Fellini's worst nightmare.
Lacking nuts, chocolate and the will to roll out any more gingerbread, I searched the Internet for a cookie recipe that could be constructed from the contents of the pantry. Chowhound, that archive of culinary snitfests, delivered a simple brown butter, brown sugar cookie recipe gleaned from Cook's Illustrated. With nothing more than flour, brown sugar, plenty of butter and a few eggs, I turned out a few dozen crisp-on-the-outside, tender and chewy-inside cookies infused with the nutty aroma of brown butter. Package with festively colored tissue paper in tins or boxes tied with baker's string. Nevermore, Acme. Nevermore.
Recipe after the jump.
Brown Sugar Cookies
via Chowhound, from Cook's Illustrated
Makes 2 Dozen Cookies
14 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1/4 cup granulated sugar (about 1 3/4 ounces)
2 cups packed dark brown sugar (14 ounces)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Heat 10 tablespoons of the butter in a pan over medium-high heat until melted. Continue to cook the butter until it is browned a dark golden color and smells nutty, about 1 to 3 minutes. Transfer the browned butter to a bowl and stir the rest of the butter into the hot butter until it melts- let this rest for 15 min. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a baking dish, mix granulated sugar and a ¼ cup of the brown sugar until combined well; set this mixture aside to roll dough balls in. Mix flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl. Add 1 ¾ cup brown sugar and salt to cooled butter and mix until there are no lumps. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla to butter mixture and mix well, then add flour and mix until just combined. Roll dough into balls about 1 ½ inches in diameter, and roll balls in brown sugar and white sugar mixture. Place balls about 2 inches apart on parchment lined baking sheets. Bake sheets one at a time until cookies are puffy and lightly browned, about 12- 14 minutes. (It says the cookies will look slightly raw between some of the cracks and seem underdone, but be careful not to overbake.) Cool on sheet for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a rack to cool.
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