Brown Butter Snickerdoodles

While not my favorite cookies, I like snickerdoodles. There is something comforting about the warmth of the cinnamon and the brown butter that these call for enhance that feeling. The brown butter, which is not nearly as daunting to make as it would seem, is warm and slightly nutty and adds a subtle complexity to the flavor of the cookie. The texture was lovely and chewy, with a fine crust of sugar. Delicious! (The recipe is from Baked's new cookbook, which I just bought and am quite happy with.)

A quick note on brown butter: it can seem intimidating to make--at least I used to find it intimidating. But really it isn't hard to make at all. Basically it's burnt butter, and really how hard it is to burn something? Seriously, all you do is put butter in a pot and melt it over a medium heat. Instead of taking it off the heat once it's all liquid, leave it on and the mill solids will eventually separate out and some will fall to the bottom. This is what will burn and turn brown and start to smell warm and slightly nutty. I assume that the French name for brown butter, beurre noisette (noisette meaning nut or hazelnut, if my French serves me), is a tribute to the nutty flavor and aroma. At this point, swirl it a bit to distribute the burnt bits and bring some unburnt solids to the bottom. At this point it's up to you if you want to make it pale or dark. I prefer it on the darker side, but that's just me. For the snickerdoodles, and other recipes I suppose, you also have the choice of straining out the burnt solids or not. Either way you have the nice flavor, but it's obviously stronger if you don't strain it. Also if you don't strain it you end up with little dark flecks in your butter and, therefore, your dough. I think that is quite pretty (it's similar to the effect you get when you use vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract--pretty black flecks of flavor in whatever you are making) but I suppose the pristine, dark tan dough without the bits of burnt milk solids has a beauty to it as well. Sorry, I lied. This was not a quick note at all. Ah well, I hope it was helpful even if it wasn't brief.