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Brown-Edge Cookies
![Brown-Edge Cookies](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/09/24/dining/ml-brown-edged-cookies/merlin_194652042_8fdde8a7-8124-43c9-af00-d0eba7344585-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1pound/453 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1pound/453 grams granulated sugar (2¼ cups)
- 1large egg, at room temperature
- 1teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3cups/384 grams all-purpose flour
- 1teaspoon fine salt
Preparation
- Step 1
Arrange two racks around the middle of the oven and heat oven to 375 degrees. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or an electric hand mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add egg and vanilla. Beat on medium until incorporated, about 1 minute.
- Step 2
Add 1 cup flour and the salt and beat on low to just combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining 2 cups flour and beat on low until incorporated. Scrape down the bowl, then beat on medium for 30 seconds just until no flour streaks remain.
- Step 3
Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto 2 parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 3 inches apart as the cookies spread quite a bit while baking.
- Step 4
Bake 2 sheets at a time, rotating the pans halfway through, until the edges are lightly browned and the centers are slightly puffed, 10 to 12 minutes. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
- Step 5
Cool on the pans on wire racks for 10 minutes, then transfer cookies to the rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Normally I get annoyed at "good" before an ingredient ("good olive oil." Really?) But your comment got me thinking about whether using European grass-fed butter, like Kerrygold, would produce a better or just different result than "good" American butter (maybe Cabot? Horizon?). Would the difference in the fat content make a difference? And what about cultured butter? I think I know how to find out...! As the weather finally cools off, I can start using my oven more...
These cookies are delicious. Important to use good butter. Also avoid cookie sheets that are darkened. Must use the parchment paper as well.
For what it's worth, 1 tsp of vanilla for 2 1/2 lbs of ingredients is a little shy. I did it with 2. Sublime.
I made these last night and they came out amazing! In my batch, I substituted for about 50 grams of almond flour and 50 grams of brown sugar for the AP and granulated sugar respectively. The resulting cookies were more delicate than the original recipe with a good balance of crispy edges and soft buttery inside. Highly recommend these minor subs!
I’ve made these and they are terrific. Next time instead of heaping tablespoon I have think less is more— I’d prefer smaller cookies. These really spread in baking resulting in 4-in cookies
This is essentially my husband's grandmother's "Million Dollar Cookie" recipe. Only she used almond extract instead of vanilla. So delicious! For the holidays, we'll use a flat bottomed glass that you press into sugar crystals and then gently flatten the cookies.
You can be pretty sure that any cookie recipe that has some age to it was done with hand mixing. In fact, I find that a Danish dough whisk works wonders for most mixing jobs. It has a long handle ending in a loop of twisted heavy-gauge, very rigid wire; the shape is roughly like the bottom half of a treble clef. The openings are so large that sticky materials don't clog it, and the wire doesn't present enough surface to stick to. I don't even own a stand mixer.
Has anyone tried this and browned the butter first? A little fiddly for sure- and an extra step but I brown the butter for my CC cookies and cocoa brownies and it’s a Game changer Thanks!
When needing half an egg for a cookie recipe - I just use one egg yolk! It works and is easy. Just use the egg white in your breakfast.
You would have to figure out either the reduction in baking time or the reduction in oven temp. Rotate the pans. The back of the oven is hotter than the front, so rotating the pans ensures even baking / browning. I personally would stick to regular bake.
I think hand-mixing won't replicate the effect of 3-4 minutes of med.-speed power-mixing. You need the butter and sugar to become light and fluffy -- I don't think you'll get there by hand, bc you won't have the speed to incorporate lots of air. I just checked Trget -- hand mixers start at $20, and they don't take up much room in the kitchen.
I split the dough into three batches and made the first plain, the second with lemon zest, and the third with both lemon zest and poppy seeds. All delicious!
Halved the recipe but not the egg. Came out just fine.
These look just like the ones my grandmother used to make over 50 years ago! She mixed in poppy seeds. I loved them as a child.
Oh baby these are delicious - rich and crisp at the edges, slightly chewy in the center. I halved the recipe, weighing everything including the egg (I used 25 grams of beaten egg for the halved recipe) and used twice as much vanilla and "normal" supermarket unsalted butter (not cultured). They do spread quite a bit - for the 2nd batch into the oven I used only about 1 teaspoon of dough per cookie. This is a keeper recipe!
Really really good
Buttery and light. Wonderful!
Can somebody explain the purpose of the potato starch? Can corn starch be substituted? (I live in Podunk and we have no idea what potato starch is, let alone where to buy it.)
Definitely a success. Parchment paper definitely works well - and can definitely be reused. I think I baked only 12 per large / regular size cookie sheet, because they spread very much. Rough calculation for calories: about 120 cal each! If Butter@3,200, Sugar@1,260, egg@80, and Flour@1200. 5740/48 = approx 120 calories each.
These were nearly perfect. Nice thin, brown, crispy edges, as I remember the store-bought cookies. I used a #40 portioning scoop and put 6 on a half sheet pan. I put more on the pan for the first batch and they ran together. I baked them for 12 minutes at 350 on convection (for the two pans in the oven).
Too sweet and greasy, they spread too much so the cookies do not mantain a round form. Maybe overmixing the butter is an important thing to consider.
Thanks to the notes here, I went with smaller scoops, 2 t Penney’s Mexican Vanilla and 1/2 t almond extract. Wow! The edges add a caramel flavor and the texture is crunchy, yet chewy. I love how plain they look—more for me! Has anyone tried these in a tin for shipping? How well do they hold up?
This recipe is delicious and I am so happy to have found it! I’ve been looking for something to replicate the beloved Nabisco version for YEARS. The recipe makes a massive amount, and I decided to freeze about half of it. I formed it into a 2-inch log, wrapped it in parchment, then put it in a freezer bag. Thawed the dough today and made them slice&bake style, about 1/4 inch thick. Baked the normal time. They’re perfect!
These are outstanding. They remind me of my childhood favorites, sand tarts. If you make half a batch, you can use 1 egg and 1 tspn of vanilla, and they remain great. You can also roll them into balls and freeze them for baking later.
These are excellent cookies! Butter is definitely the star! I halved the recipe (using the beat the egg, measure, and use half method other commenters mentioned). Definitely will go into regular rotation.
These are great! Exactly what it says on the tin. If you want the perfectly round cookies as pictured invert a drinking glass over the hot cookie and swirl it around. (Like scribbling small circles with a giant pen.) You have to be quick. Once the edges harden it won't work.
I’m sure what I did wrong and the cookies didn’t spread at all - little scoops of dough that were slightly over cooked because I left them in longer hoping something would happen. I used vegetable shortening instead of butter because it’s all I had to hand. I’ll try again with butter but for those of you moaning about losing it’s shape - try crisco smh at myself
These cookies are addictive. Like several others, I used a good butter that could be tasted in every bite. Using parchment paper is a must with these cookies. I also used a little more flavoring. If you wanted another flavor such as lemon, almond, coconut, etc. I imagine that would be easy enough to do by just changing which flavoring you'd like. We were sad when the last cookie was gone!
I halved the recipe. 4 dozen cut in half is 24, but the amount of cookies I ended up with was 12. I made these for Valentine’s Day and made them pink and they looked like tiny octopi at the start! Haha. The cookies came out with very crispy edges, looking not at all like the picture. But. They. Tasted.AMAZING! So buttery- the teachers I gave them to loved them! You can’t stop eating these amazing cookies! Super simple and adaptable for what I was doing to them! Would use this recipe again!
The best part of this cookie is the browned, crispy edges. The heaping tablespoon expands considerably (3 to 4 inches for me). Mine morphed together into big blobs, which meant fewer crispy edges :( Definitely recommend wayyy smaller scoops (a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon), and no more than 8 cookies per pan.
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