About These Brown Butter Chai Crinkle Cookies
These brown butter chai crinkle cookies are a unique take on the classic holiday crinkle cookie! Most holiday crinkle cookies are flavored with chocolate and cocoa powder. However, I flavored this crinkle cookie with the spices of the popular Indian black tea. Think: cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper. Additionally, the cookies are made with brown butter, which complements the warm flavors of the spices.
For more unique holiday cookie recipes on Hummingbird High, check out my Cookie Recipe collection! Other popular cookie recipes that people love making during the holidays include these Ube Crinkle Cookies and this Snickerdoodle Recipe Without Cream of Tartar.
And thank you to Land O’Lakes for sponsoring this recipe! Learn more in the blog post, and thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep Hummingbird High up and running!
Ingredients and Substitutions
And here’s your shopping list for the brown butter chai crinkle cookies:
Shopping List
And let’s talk about key ingredients and their potential substitutions:
Ingredient Sources and Substitutions
That’s a lot of spices. Do I really need all of them for these crinkle cookies?
Yes! Chai is known for its use of multiple spices. But don’t worry—if you don’t have all the spices I mentioned on hand, you can swap some of them out! I mentioned earlier that there is no “standard” recipe for chai. Although most chai contains cardamom, the rest of the spices are flexible. You can swap out the cinnamon, cloves, and even black pepper for other spices like allspice, nutmeg, and white pepper.
Can I replace the spices with chai tea for drinking?
Yes! If you don’t have spices on hand but have tea, you can use the tea in place of the chai spices. But if you do, I recommend that you grind the tea (similar to how you would grind whole spices) before using in this recipe. Use a spice or coffee grinder to grind the tea into a fine texture. You can see a similar technique used in my recipes for Earl Grey Chocolate Chip Cookies and Lavender Earl Grey Cookies.
How To Make The Recipe
Here are the basic steps to make brown butter chai crinkle cookies from scratch:
First, brown the Land O Lakes® Unsalted Butter.
- Brown the butter. (Work Time: 5 minutes)
Depending on how high the heat is and how cold your butter was to begin with, browning butter can take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. I like to brown the butter first to give it time to cool slightly while I prep the rest of the ingredients for the cookies. This also helps prevent you from accidentally scrambling the eggs in the dough (which can happen if you add butter that’s too hot).
Next, make the brown butter chai crinkle cookie dough.
- Prep the rest of the ingredients. (Prep Time: 5 minutes)
Once you’ve browned the butter, prep for this recipe is fairly easy! Simply measure out all the ingredients. That’s it! - Make the cookie dough. (Work Time: 5 minutes)
Making the cookie dough is also easy. First, whisk together the flour, spices, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Then, mix together the sugars, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl. Add the brown butter, then the dry ingredients. That’s right! You don’t need your stand mixer for this recipe. - Assemble the crinkle cookies. (Work Time: 5 minutes)
Use a 4-Tablespoon cookie dough scoop to portion out the dough quickly and evenly. In the recipe, I instruct you to scoop the dough balls directly into a shallow bowl of confectioners’ sugar. That’s because the dough will be fairly soft! Scooping it directly into the sugar helps prevent your hands from getting too messy.However, if you find that the dough is *TOO* soft and difficult to work with, no worries! Simply refrigerate the dough for an hour before scooping and baking.
Finally, bake the brown butter chai crinkle cookies.
- Bake the cookies. (Bake Time: 12 minutes)
The chai crinkle cookies need 12 to 15 minutes in the oven. When done, the edges should be set. However, the centers will still look a little soft. That’s normal! In fact, that’s the secret to a perfect cookie with a chewy center.
Recipe FAQ and Troubleshooting
Help! My cookie dough was too sticky. It was hard to assemble the cookies. What did I do wrong?
Don’t panic! You probably didn’t do anything wrong. The cookie dough can come out too soft if the brown butter was still too warm. While it won’t be an issue to bake them as is, the cookies can be a little difficult to assemble with overly soft dough. Simply cover the bowl with the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. After 1 hour, check the dough. It should now be easier to work with!
Help! My brown butter chai crinkle cookies came out patchy. They don’t look anything like yours! Instead, they absorbed a lot of the confectioners’ sugar while baking and have big tan spots. What did I do wrong?
Ah, yes. To get the signature crinkle cookie look, you need to coat the crinkle cookie dough in a LOT of confectioners’ sugar. Like a lot, lot. Every inch of surface area should have a thick coating of sugar. This is the secret to the classic crinkle cookie look!
Can you freeze brown butter chai crinkle cookies?
Yes! You can freeze brown butter chai crinkle cookie dough.
To freeze the cookie dough, follow the instructions to scoop the cookie dough into balls. However, don’t drop them into the confectioners’ sugar! You won’t freeze them coated. Instead, scoop them onto a lined quarter sheet pan. If you’re not planning on baking them right away, there’s no need to space the dough apart.
Loosely wrap the sheet pan with plastic wrap and freeze for 1 hour, or until the cookie dough balls are solid. Place the frozen cookie dough balls in an airtight container or zip-top bag. Freeze for up to 3 months.
When ready to bake, there’s no need to thaw the dough balls! Simply place on a lined sheet pan to thaw slightly as you preheat the oven. Then, once the oven is preheated, toss each cookie dough ball in the confectioners’ sugar. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edges have set but the centers are still soft.
Best Recipe Tips
Ingredient Tip
- Most baking recipes instruct you to sift confectioners’ sugar before using in the recipe. Confectioners’ sugar tends to clump when stored; sifting removes these lumps. However, you don’t need to sift the confectioners’ sugar for these chai crinkle cookies. Why? I find that the lumps in the confectioners’ sugar help coat the cookies more thoroughly. The lumps also break up into interesting crinkles when baked!
Technique Tips
- The brown butter needs to cool slightly before being added to the rest to the ingredients. Why? I instruct you to add the brown butter to a mixture made of the sugars and eggs. If the brown butter is too hot, you might accidentally scramble the eggs! To prevent this from happening, brown the butter first. Once it’s brown, immediately pour it into a liquid measuring cup to prevent it from cooking further. Place the measuring cup on a wire rack to allow it to cool more efficiently. While it cools, measure out the rest of the ingredients for the cookies. Doing so should take around 5 minutes, giving the butter enough time to cool slightly.
- In the recipe, I instruct you to scoop the cookie dough with a 4-Tablespoon cookie dough scoop. I then instruct you to drop the dough balls directly into the confectioners’ sugar and toss to coat. Don’t skip this step! If you drop the dough onto a sheet pan without coating them first, it’s likely that they’ll stick to the sheet pan. If you don’t plan on coating them immediately, I recommend chilling the dough for an hour first. Chilling the dough will make it easier to work with.
Styling Tip
- Coat the cookies generously with confectioners’ sugar. I mean it. Every inch of the cookie dough ball should be covered in a thick coating of confectioners’ sugar before baking. Uncoated areas show up as “bald spots” on the cookies, ruining their crinkle effect. Additionally, the cookies will absorb some of the confectioners’ sugar as they bake. So err on the side of caution and cover them with a THICK layer of confectioners’ sugar!
Get the Recipe:
Brown Butter Chai Crinkle Cookie Recipe
These brown butter chai crinkle cookies are a unique take on the classic holiday crinkle cookie! The cookies are flavored with brown butter and chai spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper.
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For the Brown Butter Chai Crinkle Cookies
For the Brown Butter Chai Crinkle Cookies
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Prep your oven and pans. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two half sheet pans with parchment paper.
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Brown the butter. In a light-colored saucepan, melt the Land O Lakes® Unsalted Butter over medium-low heat, swirling the pan occasionally, until it starts to foam. Use a heatproof rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan occasionally to prevent the milk solids in the butter from burning. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the butter smells nutty and is amber with dark flecks at the bottom of the pan. Remove from the heat and immediately pour the brown butter into a liquid measuring cup. Set it on a wire rack to cool while you prep the other ingredients.
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Make the cookie dough. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, and kosher salt.
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In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla until combined. Slowly pour in the brown butter while mixing continuously. Gradually whisk in the dry ingredients until just combined.
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Coat the cookies. Place the confectioners’ sugar in a medium, shallow bowl. Use a 4-Tablespoon cookie dough scoop to portion the cookie dough into balls, dropping them directly into the bowl with confectioners’ sugar. Toss until the cookie dough balls are completely and generously coated. Place the cookie dough balls at least 3 inches apart on the prepared sheet pans.
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Bake the cookies. Bake one pan at a time for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the edges have set but the centers are still soft.
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Serve and store. Serve warm, or at room temperature. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container or zip-top bag at room temperature for up to 3 days.
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Over the past several years of running Hummingbird High, I kept a crucial aspect of my life hidden from my readers: I had a full-time, extremely demanding job in the tech world. In my debut cookbook, Weeknight Baking, I finally reveal the secrets to baking delicious desserts on a tight schedule.
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