Nutty brown butter and coconut come together for a delicious flaky and chewy cookie that is perfectly balanced in flavor and texture. A Smitten Kitchen and Martha Stewart fave from City Bakery in Manhattan, tweaked with brown butter.
Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen posted this recipe, with a tweak of brown butter, evolving the OG from City Bakery to a new level of flavor depth and flakiness. She subs a little water to make up for the lost volume when browning the butter – I simply added 2 more Tbsp of butter to the browning process, and the results were great. A little easier – this recipe requires some chilling for the browned butter before mixing the dough, but other than that it’s insanely simple and completely decadent and you should make them now.
To quote Deb, “let’s get the obvious out of the way” – this recipe is HEAVY on the butter, and even HEAVIER on the coconut. It’s the unsweetened flaked kind, not the sweetened shredded, and we can all agree this is a special ingredient. That with the browned butter, and lots of rich vanilla bring four truly royal elements to what becomes a simple but insanely delectable treat.
Coconut is something we need more of in our daily life – it evokes feelings of sunshine and happiness, vacation and even if you are sitting here in the rainy and dreary northeast, these will truly brighten your day! I would highly recommend making them for all the May festivities to come – a finish to Cinco De Mayo, a Kentucky Derby win, and a fabulous treat for mom on May 12…
Browned Butter Coconut Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 sticks plus 2 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar
- 3/4 cup lightly packed light-brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/4 cup plus 3 Tbsp flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 4 cups dried unsweetened coconut chips
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. It will melt, then foam, then turn clear golden and finally start to turn brown and smell nutty. Stir frequently, scraping up any bits from the bottom as you do. Don’t take your eyes off the pot as it seems to take forever (more than 5 minutes) but then turns dark very quickly. Once it is a deeply fragrant, almost nut-brown color, remove from heat and pour butter and all browned bits at the bottom into a measuring cup. Chill browned butter in the fridge until it solidifies, about 1 to 2 hours. You can hurry this along in the freezer, but check back and stir often so it doesn’t freeze unevenly solid.
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat.
- Scrape chilled browned butter and any bits into a large mixing bowl. Add both sugars and beat the mixture together until fluffy. Add egg and beat until combined, scraping down bowl as needed, then vanilla. Whisk flour, baking soda and salt together in a separate bowl. Pour half of flour mixture into butter mixture and mix until combined, then add remaining flour and mix again, scraping down bowl if needed. Add coconut chips in two parts as well.
- Scoop dough into 2 inch balls and arrange a few with a lot of room for spreading on first baking sheet; use the back of a spoon or your fingers to flatten the dough slightly. Bake for 12 minutes and take the cookies out when they’re deeply golden all over.
- Cool cookies on baking sheet for 1 to 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Cookies keep for up to one week at room temperature. Extra dough can be stored in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for a month or more.
Notes
