How to Make Perfectly Crunchy Brown Butter Turtle Cookies

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Usually, I love a chewy, gooey cookie. However, the texture of these crunchy, oaty, brown butter turtle cookies is sublime. Fresh from the oven, these morsels have gooey chocolate, chewy caramel, crunchy pecans, and a soft, lovely center. As they cool, the crust becomes firm and crisp making them the PERFECT cookie to dip in a glass of milk.

My husband has been begging me to figure out the texture of a Chips Ahoy-style cookie for years. I know he’s not the only one who loves a cookie that can withstand vigorous dipping into an ice-cold glass of milk.

With that in mind, these cookies are so much more.

How to Bake Crunchy Brown Butter Turtle Cookies

First things first, crunchy cookies break the rules you usually follow for gooey, chewy cookies. You’ll feel like you’re adding too much flour and that you’re baking just a little bit too long. This is because flour firms the cookie dough up so it won’t spread, but it also dries in the oven.

So, the result is a cookie that really doesn’t spread, browns up beautifully, and cools to a firm storebought cookie texture.

Of course, you will still need to chill the dough. You still want the flour to hydrate properly and the flavors to marry. I think 48 hours is optimal, but they’re perfectly delicious after 12 hours as well.

What’s in Brown Butter Turtle Cookies?

Secondly, what is in these cookies? That name is a little vague, right? This is because they are so completely loaded with yumminess that I struggled to find a name people might actually search for. These cookies start with brown butter, but then they are loaded up with oats, pecans, caramel, and chocolate.

A few people on Instagram thought there were too many ingredients here, but most everyone thought these sounded amazing. So, here we are. We also tried to brainstorm names together, and that is why I love my group on Instagram. Make sure to follow me!

The Trick to Browning Butter Just Right

To start your cookie dough, you need brown butter. This is simple enough. You put a stick of butter in a pot and melt it. Then, let it continue cooking until the milk fats on top fry up in the clarified butter and sink to the bottom. They’ll start to turn amber-colored. You want to let them go just a little past amber and then remove them from heat.

At this point, I pour it out into a small glass bowl. Make sure to scrape all the brown bits off the bottom of the pot. You need those for flavor.

Now, the trick is to pop that bowl into the fridge for an hour. Set a timer. You don’t want to chill any longer than that. It should, at this point, be opaque but still soft. The goal is to get back to the firmness of softened butter via chilling.

Creaming Butter and Sugar Enough

Now, we’re going to beat the ever-loving tar out of our butter and sugar. Consider the texture of fluffy buttercream, and that is the texture you’re aiming for (albeit a tiny bit grainier since you’re using granulated sugar, not powdered).

So, in the bowl of your mixer using a whisk attachment, beat the brown butter and brown sugar for at least 10 minutes. I know that sounds like a long time, but just trust me.

One Final Secret to Crunchy Brown Butter Turtle Cookies

Finally, I have one last secret for the perfect crunchy brown butter turtle cookies. When these come out of the oven, you’ll need to do a little reshaping.

Grab a cookie cutter larger than your cookies and set it around each cookie, one at a time. You don’t want to cut off any edges, but you do want to rotate the cookie cutter around the cookie edge.

This motion swirls your cookie around the inside of a large round cookie cutter to make sure each cookie is a perfect circle. After you do this, gently pat the tops down with the back of a spatula.

The combination of these two moves gives you a perfectly shaped cookie. It also perfects the crunchy cookie texture that we are after.

Storing Your Cookies

Remember to store your cookies in an airtight container. This keeps them from going stale, and they will last about a week. If you don’t want to eat all the cookies at once, you can store the baked cookies in a sealed bag with all the air removed for up to six months.

There’s a little trick to that if you don’t have a vacuum sealer. Zip the bag around a straw. Then, suck all the air from the bag through the straw. Quickly remove the straw and zip the bag the rest of the way. It’ll give you a pretty tight air seal that is perfect for freezing.

You could also skip baking, and freeze the cookie dough. The best way to do that is to scoop the dough into portions and freeze them in a single layer. You can either do this in a gallon zipper bag or in a large storage container. If you need to layer your dough balls, separate the layers with a sheet of parchment paper so they don’t freeze together.

Other Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes

If you’re in the mood to try a variety of different chocolate chip cookies, I’ve got you covered with plenty of fun recipes.

• Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Tollhouse Pie
• Skillet Chocolate Chunk Cookie
• Thick, Bakery-style Chocolate Chip Cookie for Two
• Snickers Cookies

Tools You’ll Need for Brown Butter Turtle Cookies

Here are all the tools you’ll need for your cookies:

• Stand Mixer
• Baking Sheet
• Silicone Baking Mat
• #40 Cookie Scoop
• Cooling Rack

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Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!

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