This might be a bit controversial but I don't particularly love thick cookies. Don't get me wrong, they look spectacular. For photography purposes who can beat a picture of a fat cookie, big as your hand stuffed with chocolate and topped with candy bars. And for video purposes the break and pull shot with oozy filling spilling out is hard to beat.
But I need more than pretty looks, I need substance, and soul, and layers of flavour and texture instead of dense sugary propped up dough.
Enter these pistachio and salted chocolate brown butter cookies. Caramel undertones of browned butter, fragrant vanilla, crunchy chopped pistachios, smooth creamy pistachio butter, melt in your mouth dark chocolate, crisp cookie and flakes of salt weaving together to produce a harmoniously satisfying experience with every bite.
I made quite a few versions of this cookie while creating my favourite, adding a few grams extra flour here, taking out some butter to come up with the most pleasing mix between buttery candy like texture that was firm enough to keep it's shape and hold up to cookie like treatment.
In the final version I have melted the butter with a tablespoon of milk powder which results in a crazy amount of browning in the butter. If you are not keen to brown the butter, you can just melt the butter and you will still end up with a lovely cookie, if you are not browning the butter and just melting it, reduce the amount of butter to 130 grams(4 5/8oz) to account for evaporation during the browning process.
As these cookies are soft and buttery, they need to rest on the trays to cool.
\I shaped my cookies after baking using a round cookie cutter, by placing the cutter over the cookies and swirling them around in little circles. If are not quick enough or bake the cookies too much this technique will not work.
I bought my pistachio cream from Costco - I have seen the exact same brand on Amazon (CLICK HERE). If you don't want to buy pistachio cream you can save yourself some money and time, leave it out and the cookies will still be delicious. While I was making the cookies I thought they would make be amazing with Nutella and hazelnuts in place of the pistachio.
Happy Baking XX
Linda M
Pistachio Salted Dark Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies
makes 10 cookies x 10cm (apex 4") in size (60gram or 2oz uncooked dough). Store in an airtight container up to 3 days. Uncooked dough can be portioned into cookie serves, frozen wrapped in plastic wrap and defrosted for baking.
I shaped my cookies after baking with a circle cookie cutter around 10cm (4 inches) across .
140g (4 7/8oz)salted butter
1 Tbsp dried milk powder
170g (6oz) plain (all purpose) flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 baking powder (baking powder)
120g (4 1/4oz) brown sugar
50g (1 3/4oz) granulated white sugar
1 egg room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
120g (4 1/4oz) dark chocolate cut into chunks - reserve some for adding to top half way through baking as mine was chunks I reserved around 55g (1 7/8oz) if you have chips reserve a few chips per cookie
45g (1 5/8 oz) or 1/3 cup shelled raw pistachios chopped (reserve 1 Tbsp of finely chopped nuts)
70g (2 1/2oz) pistachio cream
1 tsp flaky salt
Prior to starting to brown the butter have a heat safe container which can hold 2 cups of more ready to pour the hot butter into.
In a saucepan heat the butter over medium heat until melted. Stir with a rubber spatula or whisk so the butter cooks evenly. When the butter is melted add the 1 tbsp of milk powder. Continue to cook until the milk solids start to brown and immediately remove the saucepan from the heat and pour into the heat safe bowl. Make sure you scrap all the browned milk solids from the saucepan into the melted butter.
Allow the butter to cool a little while you prepare the remaining ingredients.
Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, brown sugar and white sugar into a large bowl.
Add the melted brown butter, egg and vanilla to the large bowl of dry ingredients and mix until combined using a large spoon or spatula. Make sure all the ingredients are wet and mixed in.
Add the chopped chocolate (making sure to save some to add later to the top during baking) and the chopped pistachio and mix until distributed evenly. Pop bowl into fridge to chill around 30 minutes.
Cover 2 cookie trays with parchment paper or silopat mat* Divide the cookie dough into 10 equal portions of about 60g (2 1/4 oz) each. Shape into a tall cylinder and poke an indent into the top of each cookie. Add pistachio cream into the middle indent of each cookie. Chill the dough for at least another 30 minutes. You can chill for longer up to overnight if you like but keep the cookies in an airtight container if chilling for longer than an hour.
Preheat oven to 175C (350F) fan forced. Once oven is heated put cookies in oven and bake for 6 minutes. Remove from oven, add extra reserved chocolate on top of cookies, rotate tray positions and return to oven to bake further 6-7 minutes until the cookies start to brown around the edges.
Allow cookies to cool on tray until set.
* I trialed baking the cookies on both a silo pat mat and parchment paper. The silopat mat ended up a more pleasing shape as they spread more evenly, the parchment paper lined trays ended up a crispier cookie, both were very good, I will probably use the silopat mat for aesthetic purposes in future.
