Brown Butter Pumpkin Spice Cookies
These Brown Butter Pumpkin Spice Cookies have a delightful hint of pumpkin spice and a lovely kick of cozy and aromatic brown butter for a supremely delicious soft and chewy cookie! You're going to NEED this recipe for your fall baking!
Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 8 Tbsp (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1/3 cup pumpkin puree (100% pure pumpkin, NOT pumpkin pie filling)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1½ Tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
- First, brown your butter. Add your unsalted stick of butter to a small saucepan and turn to medium low heat. Allow the butter to melt, then pay attention because things happen quite fast after it melts. Eventually your butter will start to bubble, pop, or foam/fizz at which point you need to swirl the pan or manually stir the butter until you can see little brown flecks forming on the bottom of the pan. Cook, swirling or stirring constantly, until the brown flecks multiply and darken in color to an amber shade. Do not step away as this happens VERY fast and can burn quickly. If it burns, you have to start over. Once nutty smelling and amber colored, remove from the heat and let cool for about 5 minutes.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the brown butter (be sure to scrape the bottom of the pan for ALL those browned bits - that's the liquid gold and flavor central right there!), and both sugars and beat with the paddle attachment for about 1 minute. Add in the vanilla, maple syrup and pumpkin and beat until combined. Lastly, add in the cornstarch, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and flour and mix until combined.
- Refrigerate to chill for at LEAST 30 minutes, up to 1 day, before baking. This helps prevent too much spreading and also allows the flavors to meld.
- Preheat oven to 350° degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners. Drop rounded Tablespoonfuls of dough using a cookie dough scoop 2" apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through the baking time to ensure even cooking. Cookies may appear slightly underdone; this is normal and they will continue to finish cooking on the baking sheets as they cool. Do not over bake them.
- Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for about 10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Notes
If you can't find or don't have a pumpkin pie spice blend, you can absolutely make your own. Simply use 1 & 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/8 tsp ground cloves.