Browned Butter Banana Cookies

Browned butter and banana has become my favorite flavor combination. The browned butter enhances and compliments the banana flavor tremendously. Add a little cinnamon and nutmeg and you have a mouth-watering cookie, crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, with an amazing aroma!

See also: Gluten-Free Browned Butter Banana Cookies, Vegan Banana Cookies

The Inside Scoop

American butter is 16%-18% water, 2-4% milk solids plus sometimes salt, and about 80% butterfat, . When butter is browned, the water cooks out of the butter and the fat becomes more concentrated. This creates quite a challenge in finding the right balance between the fats, flours, liquids and bananas. I have included weights for most ingredients since this is the most accurate way of achieving the desired results. Volumetric measures should be considered approximations.

To brown butter: Do NOT use a non-stick or dark colored skillet to brown the butter. It is essential to be able to determine the color of the butter as it browns. Once the butter melts and the water evaporates, the butter will brown quickly and can burn easily if not removed from heat in time.

Before browning the butter, place a plastic container in a bowl filled with a couple inches of ice water. Be sure the inside of the plastic container remains dry. Once the butter browns to a golden color, it needs to be cooled immediately, otherwise it will continue to cook and burn.

As the butter browns, it will become somewhat foamy and browned milk particles will sink to the bottom. If you wish, you can remove the foam and some of the browned particles by pouring the browned butter through a small sieve and into the container. This method is also helpful if the butter has become slightly burned as it will remove most of the burnt milk particles.

When you are done, you will have a beautiful, deep golden brown butter with darker milk particles on the bottom. The darker milk particles are completely useable and very flavorable.

Let the browned butter cool completely and become slightly firm, but not hard. Once the water is cooked out, browned butter will become much firmer than the original butter. To store, cover and refrigerate. Note: Butter can be browned several days in advance.

Once the browned butter has cooled to room temperature and become slightly firm, measure out 160 grams of the browned butter. If there is extra browned butter, store in a sealable container and refrigerate. I typically brown a pound of butter at a time and store the extra for the next time I want it.

For this recipe, the bananas need to be pureed. I found that fork mashing the bananas left too many small chunks of banana- the liquid in these small chunks of banana made the cookies “wet” within a few hours. By pureeing the bananas, the bananas bake evenly and the cookies maintains their chewiness.

Avoid incorporating excess air into the cookie batter by gently folding the wet and dry ingredients together. Excess air makes for a more cake-like cookie.

Be sure to leave 3″ of space between cookies, as cookies will rise considerably.

Print Recipe

Browned Butter Banana Cookies

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Connie Teunis – Serves: Makes 3 dozen 1-ounce cookies

A wonderfully crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside cookie with the mouth-watering aroma and taste of browned butter and banana!

Ingredients

• 2 Sticks Unsalted Butter, Browned; measure out 160 g. of browned butter for the cookies
• 192 g./ 1 c. Granulated Sugar
• 1 Large Egg
• 275 g./ approximately 3 medium large Bananas
• 1 t. Banana Extract (opt.)
• 240 g./ 2 c. All-Purpose Flour
• ½ t. Baking Soda
• ½ t. Salt
• 1/8 – ¼ t. Nutmeg
• 1 t. Cinnamon
• 200 g./ 1 c. Chocolate Chips (opt.)

Instructions

1

To Make the Browned Butter:

2

Fill a medium bowl with approximately 1 -2 inches of ice water. Place a plastic container in the middle of the ice water, making sure to keep the inside of the plastic container dry. Have a small sieve nearby, ready to use.

3

Place the butter in a skillet (do not use a non-stick pan or a pan with a dark lining) and place over low heat; cook until butter sticks are melted. Continue cooking, occasionally stirring gently, until butter develops a golden color and browned milk solids begin to settle on the bottom of the pan. This may take 15-20 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and pour the browned butter through the sieve and into the plastic container sitting in the bowl of ice water. This will prevent the hot butter from continuing to cook and thus, burning. Let the butter cool until it has softly solidified and cooled to room temperature.

4

To Make the Cookies:

5

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Add chocolate chips, if using; set aside.

6

Break the egg into a small bowl; whisk.

7

Put 275 grams of banana in a small food processor and puree. Set aside.

8

In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar; by hand, cream together until smooth. Add the egg; by hand, mix until completely incorporated. Add 250 grams of the pureed banana and banana extract, if using; mix by hand until completely incorporated.

9

Sprinkle 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients; by hand, fold in flour mix to combine; repeat 2 more times until all of the flour mix has been incorporated.

10

Cover the cookie batter and place the bowl in the refrigerator for 30 or more minutes.

11

After 30+ minutes, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

12

For each cookie, measure out 1 ounce of batter (approximately 1 large rounded tablespoon). Place cookies onto the prepared cookie sheets, spacing cookies 3” apart.

13

Bake cookies 11-13 minutes until lightly browned and firm to the touch. Let cookie sheet cool on a cooling rack for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, transfer the cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack.

14

Enjoy!