Brown-Betty Buttons

These cookies taste good, but making them is tricky, and that is why 3-stars.  The dough is especially crumbly, so making a ball is practically impossible.  I ended up pressing dough into a teaspoon and making half circles. Even coming out of the oven the cookies are still crumbly, and they are hard to get to stay together as balls.   

I love this cookie, I have even been asked for the recipe so I know it’s great! I used my mom’s homemade pineapple jelly and it’s a hit!

Love these cookies! They’re a bit crumbly and have that ‘dry’ sort of texture that some shortbread cookies have, which I really loved but my Husband wasn’t too fond of. I used strawberry jelly instead of the raspberry, simply because it’s what I had on hand, and they were delish.

This recipe is a lot like “Spoon Cookies” (Lusikkaleivat)that I found on this site. They are delicious! You do have to be careful when browning the butter (it goes from melted to browned in the blink of an eye). Probably easier to make that recipe but do in tiny balls instead of spoon shape. If you follow the modified sugar cookie recipe I would NOT use any zest.Also I do not know where “ohio Margaret” got the idea she had to cut the cookes. The recipe says to sandwich the baked cookies.

Once it’s in your mouth, it’s tasty, and let me add that a sprinkling of confectionery sugar hides a multitude of sins, but it didn’t taste so good to make it worth the work.

I was careful to weigh my dry ingredients and followed the recipe very closely. I was very hopeful when browning the butter that it would add a nice caramel or butterscotch type undertone to the dough, as browned butter often does in a cookie. BTW, watch when browning the butter. Don’t answer the phone or get distracted. When it finally browns, it goes very quickly. When you see the bits on the bottom start to turn darker and the butter starts to smell nutty, take it off heat or it will burn.

Unfortunately, I didn’t notice the browned butter adding that extra scotchy undertone that I was hoping for. Also, the dough was a bit crumbly. I used a small scoop (2 tsps) to ball up the dough. It took some effort to keep the dough together. I couldn’t roll it between my palms without it crumbling.

They baked properly, although they never browned, so I just felt the dough to see if it was done. After cooling, when I went to split the balls to add the jam, the balls tended to crumble apart a bit. I used a serrated knife and sawed slowly, which helped, but it still left many cookies a bit unsightly. Once I added the jam and powdered sugar, it was fine, but the jam overpowered the taste of the cookie, so go lightly on that.

Like I said, it was tasty but not my favorite. I would not make them again, not because they were awful, but simply because there are too many other good cookie recipes to make and this just wasn’t one of the best. I rated it three stars for average.