1960s Recipes + Menus

Brown Butter Cookies

June 1961
Brown Butter Cookies

A
A miracle of chemistry: You’ve used all these ingredients to make cookies before, but melting and browning the butter prior to incorporating it brings out a whole different spectrum of complexity. Vanilla sugar ensures that the irresistible aroma wafts to every corner of the house once they’re in the oven.

This is just one of Gourmet’s Favorite Cookies: 1941-2008. Although we’ve retested the recipes, in the interest of authenticity we’ve left them unchanged: The instructions below are still exactly as they were originally printed.

In a heavy saucepan melt 1 cup butter over low heat until it browns. Add 2/3 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar and cool the mixture. Beat in 2 1/3 cups flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder to make a smooth dough. Roll spoonfuls of the dough into marble sized balls and put them 1 inch apart on a buttered baking sheet. Press each ball down slightly with the tines of a fork, and top with half a blanched almond. Bake the cookies in a moderately slow oven (325° F.) for 20 minutes. Remove them from the baking sheet and cool. Serve half of the cookies. Freeze the remainder in a freezer container.

To serve the frozen cookies, defrost them at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes.

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