My goal with these cookies is to distill the brown butter-iest taste possible.

Milk Powder is the key here. These cookies utilize the same technique that browning butter does, which I’ve seen in a few forms recently. You can see recipes where extra milk powder is added while browning butter or where the milk powder is toasted separately in a pan. In my testing, I’ve found that browning it with the rest of the butter in a saucepan is the most predictable route.

I’d used this technique before in a chocolate chip cookie, but I’d noticed the bitter, dark chocolate taste was still the primary flavor (even if they did taste wonderful). I wanted the toasted milk flavor to be front-and-center. Top billing.

Browning the Butter

Butter is browned by heating it, so that the milk solids caramelize. When you’re using milk powder, it’s roughly the same process with additional added milk solids.

Using a saucepan, you can brown butter the way you normally would.

Here’s my approach:

1. Add butter to a saucepan over medium heat and, holding the pan handle, gently swirl the butter once melted.
2. Bubbles will form and the water will evaporate off. When the bubbles cool down and you notice the solids in the butter turning caramel color (Tip: Angle the pan up and “baste” the butter to the other side to get a clearer view), shut off the heat.
3. Pour the butter off into a separate container to cool down and prevent burning.

You can burn the milk solids in the butter by heating them too much. If you’ve burned them, the resulting color will be very dark, and readily apparent when tasting. If you’re wondering whether you’ve gone too far, your taste is the best judge!

Watch that rise and spread!

These will puff up in the oven like they’re a snickerdoodle, but give them some time to cool afterwards and they’ll look like chewy chocolate chip cookies or sugar cookies. You get that delicious, crispy bottom with a gooey, caramel-like center.

15 minutes or so out of the oven should be enough.