Brown Butter Thumbprint Cookies

Brown butter thumbprint cookies v.1

Brown Butter Thumbprint Cookies

Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve bothered baking. It’s been absolute chaos with a new (formerly sick) puppy and an impossibly entropic work environment. This year has inevitably put us all through the wringer but, on the upside, the year is almost over—not that I personally believe that things will be completely sorted by 2021, but it’d be nice for this year to wrap up.

Anyways, let’s get back to the baking. To me, the ideal thumbprint cookie is soft, buttery goodness with a center of perfectly sweet jam. Ideally, the cookie shouldn’t have cracks—indicating optimal dough hydration. In addition, the jam should be filled to the top—no one wants a minuscule puddle of jam with their cookie.

This recipe was modified from Sugar Spun Run’s recipe here.

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Quick notes/tips before starting

• I didn’t actually bother weighing this out which is kind of a baking travesty of sorts, but I’ll do the conversions below and test at a later time point.

• This makes quite a fair bit of cookies, but I was actually making a ton for my dad to bring to work. Presumably, this should actually halve well though.

• If planning to pack these for gifting, I highly recommend these bags with stickers for sealing. The end result just looks super professional and cute! The bags are of great quality and the stickers just add that final touch.

Ingredients

Dough

• 2 cup (454 g) salted butter

• 2/3 cup (140 g) granulated sugar

• 2/3 cup (140 g) tightly packed brown sugar

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 2 large egg yolks

• 2 tsp vanilla paste

• 1/2 cup (123 g) milk

• 4.5 cup (560 g) flour

• 4 tsp cornstarch

Jam

• I just used Bonne Maman jam :shrug:, specifically both the strawberry preserves and the mango-peach preserves.
  I’d assume that any flavor/jam type should work as the additional water from the jam should evaporate leaving the pectin to solidify.

Items

• cookie sheets

• cooling rack

• parchment paper

• clean tbsp + tsp spoons for dough uniformity

• fridge space for about 2 cookie sheets to rest

Instructions

Brown the butter

1. Place butter in the saucepan.

2. Turn on the heat to low-medium.

3. Swirl the pan. Place the pan back on the heat. And repeat over and over again. Do this carefully given that there’s a lot of butter.
   After the butter completely melts, it will start to bubble and boil. Over time, it will start to foam, and this is usually when the butter starts browning. Be careful not to let the milk solids burn or to get burnt (as I typically do). Stop when the butter turns an amber color.

4. Transfer the browned butter into the heat-resistant mixing bowl and let the butter cool and re-solidify.
   You can leave it out and it should solidify over a couple of hours, or you can place the bowl with the melted butter in a salted ice water bath <insert science/melting point justifications> and let it solidify—but don’t let it harden.

Make the dough

1. Using the whisk attachment, whip the butter to aerate the butter until it becomes a light beige color.

2. Add sugar and cream until there are no visible sugar granules. King Arthur Baking Company has a great tutorial on creaming butter and sugar here.

3. Add salt, egg yolk, vanilla paste, and milk. Beat the mixture.

4. Add portions of flour (a cup at a time) and corn starch (1 tsp at a time) and mix until just incorporated before adding the next cup of flour.

The final end dough should be slightly crumbly but should hold together well.

Assembling

BAKE TEMPERATURE: 375ºF

BAKE TIME/SHEET: 11 minutes

1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Scoop 1 tbsp of dough, leveling dough roughly with fingers. Roll measured dough very well so that the dough ball is round.

3. Slightly press the dough ball down to about 1 cm in height with fingers and then slowly use the back of the tsp to make the indentation.
   NOTE: If trying to achieve minimal cracking, I do not recommend rolling all the dough out first as the dough seems to dry and become more prone to cracking if not immediately indented after rolling.

4. Repeat 2-3 until you have a 5x5 array of indented cookies. I placed each cookie approximately 1 inch apart if measuring from the edges of the cookies—approximately 3 inches apart if measuring from the centers of the cookies.

5. Place cookie sheet into the fridge and then work on another 5x5 array of cookies.

6. Once the second cookie sheet goes into the fridge, preheat the oven to 375ºF.

7. Stick the jam in the microwave (obviously without the metal lid) and microwave for approximately 30 seconds until the jam is just slightly runny. Mix jam jar contents with a clean spoon.

8. Take the first cookie sheet out (cookies should be hard at this point) and spoon the jam into each indent. Fill just to the brim. If concerned about circularity, then do the macaron flick/swirl to ensure that all the jam ends up in the indentation.

9. Bake the first cookie sheet for 11 minutes. Assemble the next sheet and continue as needed until all cookies are baked.

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Thoughts

1. Incorporate 1-2 tbsp of milk powder for additional milkiness.

2. Attempt possibly piping this so that there are more interesting designs?