m&m cookies with brown butter

Brown butter chocolate chip cookies, but with m&m’s instead of chocolate chips. The crunch of the candy coating paired with the melty chocolate inside a classic, chewy chocolate chip cookie is unbeatable.

why you’ll love m&m cookies with brown butter

• Brown butter, brown sugar, vanilla bean paste, and plenty of salt makes this cookie base incredible. It’s chewy in the center with crisp edges, which is the perfect cookie texture.
• M&M’s are so good in a cookie like this because they have nothing a crunchy candy texture and a melty chocolate texture. They’re also so seasonal, which makes these great to make during holidays like Valentine’s Day and Christmas. Shake it up and try different flavors of M&M’s like peanut butter or caramel. (On my way to try that now…)
• These are so fast and easy to make, and the chill time is technically optional. So if you want chocolate chip cookies right now, these are perfect. However, if you want to make them ahead of time, they taste even better when chilled in the fridge for 24 hours.

ingredients in m&m cookies with brown butter

• unsalted butter– Salted butter will be fine if it’s all you have. It doesn’t have to be room temperature, because we are going to brown it.
• granulated sugar– I like to use a mix of granulated sugar and brown sugar in my chocolate chip cookie dough. Granulated sugar gives the cookies a crisp edge.
• brown sugar– I like dark brown sugar in my cookies because of the rich, caramel flavor, but you can use light or brown. Brown sugar aids in the chewiness of this cookie.
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt– (Don’t swap this for another salt if you can. It is the BEST salt for baking. Grab a box here. However, if you only have table salt or a fine sea salt available, use half the amount of salt called for in this recipe)
• vanilla bean paste– If you don’t have vanilla bean paste, extract is totally fine.
• eggs
• all purpose flour
• baking powder– for lift
• baking soda– for spread and color
• m&m’s– I used a 10 oz. bag of m&m’s, 8 oz. in the dough and 2 oz. pressed into the tops of my dough balls. I think the amount of chocolate in a cookie is totally personal, so add however much you like in a cookie.
• flakey salt– I use Maldon because it is incredible, but it’s totally optional to put salt on top of a chocolate chip cookie. Skip it if you don’t like it.

supplies needed to make m&m cookies with brown butter

• heat proof mixing bowl– no mixer for this, so just grab a metal or glass mixing bowl
• wire whisk– to mix up the wet ingredients
• spatula– to stir in the dry ingredients
• cookie scoop– I used a #30 scoop
• parchment paper– I love Kana Lifestyle pre-cut parchment paper
• cookie sheet– best to have two

how to make m&m cookies with brown butter

These cookies are so easy to make. Start by browning some butter- don’t be scared of this if you’ve never done it. It’s insanely easy. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat (you do not want a high heat for this). It will start to sizzle and bubble, which is the water cooking off and evaporating. Stir it every once in a while, paying attention to when the sizzling starts to calm down. That’s when the water has nearly been evaporated, and it’s important to start stirring often. The color will start to turn golden and the milk solids will start to brown. It browns very quickly at this stage, so don’t walk away. Once the butter has turned a rich golden brown and smells very toasty and toffee-like, pour the butter into a heat proof mixing bowl, quickly scraping the bottom of the pot to make sure the milk solids are also transferred to the bowl. Cool the butter for about ten minutes. I like to pop my bowl in the fridge while I gather the rest of my ingredients.

Once the butter has had a chance to cool down slightly (it will still be warm), add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and kosher salt.

Using a wire whisk, aggressively whisk the sugars really well into the butter for a couple minutes. The mixture will look like wet sand. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk well for another couple of minutes until the mixture is emulsified.

The mixture will be thickened and much lighter in color. Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Use a spatula to gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet until it is almost combined, but not quite.

Add the m&m’s to the dough and finish mixing with a spatula until there are no more dry spots in the dough.

Using a #30 cookie scoop, scoop the dough into balls and place them right next to each other on a parchment lined baking sheet. Press the remaining 2 oz. of m&m’s into the tops of the dough balls. With my scoop, I was able to get 27 cookies. Depending on what scoop you use, you can assume to get at least 24 cookies. Wrap the sheet in plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight for 24 hours.

If you need cookies right now, feel free to skip the chill time. If you have a couple hours, chill them for a couple hours. They are even better chilled, but it’s not that serious, and they are delicious even without chilling. I tested it.

Bake the cookies at 350 F for 10-14 minutes. Take them out when the tops are not shiny or wet looking and the outer edge of the cookie is golden brown. The center may look underdone, but it will set up on the cookie sheet. Leave the cookies on the hot cookie sheet to cool for five minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

success tips for making m&m cookies with brown butter

• Mise en place’ is a French phrase with the idea of putting everything in its place before beginning to make a recipe. It helps everything to go smoothly and eliminates so much possible stress. Getting all of your supplies and ingredients together beforeever starting the recipe will help tremendously.
• Weigh your ingredients, particularly the flour. It is the most important measurement in this recipe to weigh. Flour can be off in volume measurements by up to 30g, which is a quarter cup! Having incorrect flour measurements can cause your cookies to spread too much or, alternatively, be dry and crumbly. Weighing your ingredients makes everything so much easier, as you don’t have to wash all the measuring cups at the end. However, I do not use the scale to weigh out teaspoon or tablespoon measurements for things like baking powder, salt, vanilla, or cornstarch, for example.
• Be careful not to burn the brown butter. It should be warm golden brown, not black brown. Your nose will be your guide. If it burns, best to toss it and try again than risk making cookies that taste burnt from the get-go.
• For perfectly round cookies, use a large metal cookie cutter to scoot the hot cookies into shape. I’m addicted to doing this.

watch how to make m&m cookies with brown butter

Don’t come for me and my aggressive vanilla pours.

Print