Caramel Filled Pecan Brown Butter Cookies

My first experience with brown butter was with the Madeleines that I made previously, since then I have been obsessed with brown butter.  I love the deep rich nutty caramel kind of flavor you get when you brown the butter....who knew!  So I was going through some old magazine clippings and found this Pecan Brown Butter Cookie and thought they sounded yummy... I wanted to take it one step further and make them into sandwich cookies filled with caramel.  I still have lots of chocolate left over from Christmas so why not drizzle it with chocolate!

I had caramels also left over from Christmas so I cheated and just melted those down for the filling.  I realized after I had the cookies in the oven that I forgot to add the brown sugar....argh!  Well they turned out ok, but not quite sweet enough.  The brown sugar probably would have made them spread out a little flatter.  Oh well, I guess I will have to try them again.  They did taste good...I think adding the caramel and chocolate helped with the sweetness factor.  I used restraint and only ate half a cookie, but I very easily could have eaten a few more!

Pecan Brown Butter Cookies
printable recipe

Makes about 42 cookies

Active time 1 hr   Start to Finish 1 1/4 hours

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

2 cups pecans  (7 oz), toasted, cooled and chopped

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees with racks in the upper and lower thirds.
• Heat butter in a 10 inch heavy skillet over medium heat until milk solids on the bottom are dark chocolate brown.  Strain through a fine mesh strainer lined with a paper towel. 
• Blend cooled brown butter with sugars, flour, baking soda, salt and eggs in a food processor until smooth.  Transfer to a bowl and stir in pecans.
• Spoon tablespoons of batter onto  parchment-lined baking sheets, arranging them about 1 inch apart.
• Bake, switching positions of sheet halfway through, until browned, 15 to 18 minutes.  Transfer cookies to rack to cool ( cookies will crisp as they cool)

Enjoy!