Is Browning Butter Worth It?

A baking experiment

I wouldn’t describe myself as a browned butter hater, but rather a browned butter skeptic. Browned butter chocolate chip cookies seem to be everywhere now, and I can immediately tell that the butter was browned rather than incorporated “raw.” Yes, there is a flavor difference, but what immediately makes me notice is the texture of the browned butter cookie. It crumbles much more easily and the cookie is less soft and gooey than a cookie with “raw” butter. The same is true for brownies made with browned butter. The flavor brown butter adds is nutty and caramel-y, but in a good chocolate chip cookie or brownie, I feel like that’s unnecessary because the flavor of chocolate dominates. People seem to be operating on the assumption that browned butter makes baked goods better, but can’t really explain why, other than the slight flavor difference. Is the flavor difference really worth it when considering the negative impact on texture?

After some research, it appears the reason there is a texture change in the browned butter cookie is because the process of browning the butter removes the water from the butter. Butter is something like 15-20% water, and that water is necessary for a great cookie texture. It’s not because of gluten development, because hardly any gluten is developed in a regular cookie anyway, but apparently because the water allows the sugar in the cookie to dissolve and then caramelize. So, the solution when using browned butter is to add liquid back to the browned butter to compensate.

I recently encountered a cookie recipe that used heavy cream as the replacement for the water lost (I think from Claire Saffitz) and wanted to try it to see if I was just being a hater. I decided to perform the below baking experiment to test browned butter vs. not browned butter cookies side by side.

For the experiment, I used a regular sugar cookie base, without adding vanilla or chocolate, because I wanted the flavor difference of the brown butter to be more noticeable. But I also wanted to test whether adding liquid to a browned butter cookie would truly solve the texture issue, so I made two different batches of cookie with browned butter. The below chart shows the ingredients for each batch of cookies. All of the ingredients for each batch were the same brand.

The weight of each stick of butter “raw” was around 115 g. For the browned butter cookie recipes, I browned both sticks together then separated them by weight, so the flavor contributed to each batch would be about the same.

The way I calculated the amount of heavy cream to add back to the recipe is as follows:

1. Weigh the sticks of butter before browning (234 g).

2. Weigh the sticks of butter after browning (189 g). Each “stick” worth of brown butter was about 94.5 g.

3. This means that the two sticks of butter together lost 45 g of water through the browning, or about 23 g per stick of butter.

4. For the recipe with added liquid, I added back 23 g of water. Heavy cream is about 2/3 water, so 34 g of heavy cream should add back about that amount of water by weight.

The directions I used:

1. Brown 2 sticks of butter. I cooked 2 sticks on the stove at medium-lowish heat for 15-20 minutes until the milk solids fall out and brown. This happens after it stops bubbling because the water has boiled off. Stir it a bit to make sure it browns evenly. Set aside to let cool.

2. Cream butter or browned butter for each batch in separate bowls. Once light and fluffy, add the egg and mix until fully incorporated.

3. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.

4. Separate each batch into balls. The balls I made were 75 g each (Note to future self: a bit smaller would be better).

5. Bake at 350F for about 12 minutes until the edges just start to brown. I baked the cookies from room temp and my oven sucks so your bake time could be shorter/longer based on those factors, if for some reason you follow this recipe. I started checking the cookies after 10 minutes.

The cookies before baking, from right to left: control, pure browned butter, browned butter with liquid added.

The cookies immediately after baking, from right to left: control, pure browned butter, browned butter with liquid added. You can see the flecks of the browned milk solids!

Results:

You can see from the pictures that the pure browned butter cookie didn’t spread as much as the control or the browned butter with liquid added (“BBWLA”) cookies. After cooling, I tasted each cookie.

The texture of the cookies is different, as expected. The pure browned butter cookie was crumblier and fell apart on the tongue almost like a pecan sandie does, but softer. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but also not ideal. The control and the BBWLA cookies were both more tender and didn’t crumble as much until chewed.

The flavor difference was more noticeable side by side. The control cookie tasted like a regular sugar cookie. When I ate the BBWLA cookie, the nuttiness and caramel flavor were both immediately apparent. For some reason, the pure browned butter cookie did not seem to have as strong of a flavor difference. I am unsure if the salt content in each cookie is impacted greatly by the difference in water content, but the control and the BBWLA cookies both tasted a bit saltier, which was pleasant, especially in the BBWLA cookie.

Conclusion:

Overall, the BBWLA cookie was the most pleasant. The browned butter added a nice complexity to what is otherwise a pretty boring, but delicious cookie. The pure browned butter cookie was the worst of the three, because of the texture being negatively impacted and the flavor of the browned butter not shining through as much. The control cookie was just a regular sugar cookie, buttery, sugary, and delicious but nothing special.

It seems that browned butter actually does make a cookie better, provided liquid is added to the dough to compensate for the loss of liquid during the browning process. However, more experiments will have to be performed to determine whether a browned butter with liquid added dough base is better in chocolate chip cookies or brownies, as the presence of chocolate impacts the flavor greatly.