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Brown Butter Easter Cookies

Name: Brown Butter Easter Cookies
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 14 min
Total time: 34 min
Yield: 12
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 14 tablespoons butter, divided; 1/2 cup sugar; 3/4 cup dark brown sugar (to make your own, check the blog post); 2 teaspoons vanilla extract; 1 egg; 1 egg yolk; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1 3/4 cup flour; 3/4 cup white chocolate M and M's (or favorite flavor), pastel-colored, plus more to garnish; 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped into small chunks

posted by Liz Berg on March 31, 2020 (updated 3/2/22)

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Easy, bakery-worthy Brown Butter Easter Cookies made with chocolate chip cookie dough & pastel M&M’s along with pro baking tips!

With a couple of simple tricks, your holiday M&M Cookies will look like they came right from the bakeshop, only tastier!

Brown butter cookies speckled with pastel colored Easter M&M's

Table of Contents hide

1 Why You Should Make These

2 Frequently Asked Questions

3 What Is Brown Butter?

4 How Is Brown Butter Made?

5 How Do You Store Brown Butter?

6 Tips for Making These Easter Cookies

7 More Easter Desserts You’ll Love

8 Other Recipes Utilizing Brown Butter

9 Brown Butter Easter Cookies

Why You Should Make These

If you want a super simple, festive Easter Cookies recipe, I’ve got you covered. After some blogger buzz about White Chocolate M and M’s, I had to nab a couple of bags (check your local Target), but Easter milk chocolate M&M’s are also an option. Plus, using brown butter gives a subtle boost of deliciousness.

Their pastel shells were perfect for the task at hand. This recipe only makes 12 cookies. That was the one and only complaint about these Easter Cookies. My dear hubby realized the cookie jar would be empty soon. But they are HUGE and wonderful, so savor every bite.

3 Brown Butter Easter Cookies on a rimmed white place surrounded by pastel M&M's

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Brown Butter?

Brown butter is butter that is melted then cooked until the milk solids start to brown. This process transforms ordinary butter into liquid gold with a nutty aroma! It is used in sauces, like brown butter with sage on pasta, or as a way to kick up the flavor of desserts like in these cookies or banana bread!

How Is Brown Butter Made?

Start by cutting the butter into pieces in a heavy saucepan. It’s easier to watch the color change if the pan’s interior is stainless instead of a dark color.

Melt the butter over moderate heat, swirling on occasion to prevent hot spots from cooking too fast.

The butter will foam and change from butter yellow to tan to a toasty brown. Watch carefully as it can easily burn, and then you must start over.

This process causes 20% of the water to evaporate and through the Maillard reaction, transforms the butter proteins into loads of flavor compounds. This is the same reaction that causes seared meat to taste so delicious!!

How Do You Store Brown Butter?

Once you have the brown butter, you can use it in liquid form in these cookies or for sauces or chill to use it as solid butter.

Cover and store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. If frozen, it will keep for months as long as it’s well wrapped.

2 Brown Butter Easter Cookies with pastel M & M's on a round white plate

Tips for Making These Easter Cookies

If you don’t have dark brown sugar, you can use light brown sugar. PRO-Tip: You can also make dark brown sugar at home. Just mix one tablespoon of molasses into 1 cup of light brown sugar. Mix until the molasses is well dispersed, measure and use as directed.
Have your eggs at room temperature. Note that eggs will separate easier, with less chance of the egg breaking, when cold. If you’re not experienced separating eggs, try it with a cold egg, then let the yolk come to room temperature.
Use whatever M&M’s you’d like. If these are for Easter, definitely look for some pastel M&M’s. Other times of the year, use regular M&M’s for these tasty M&M Cookies.
PRO-Tip: Use a 1/4 cup cookie scoop to dish out consistently sized cookies.
A trick I’ve used for years is to use my spatula to carefully tap the fresh out of the oven cookies into perfect rounds while they’re still hot. When they’re full of chocolate chunks and candies, even perfect mounds of dough can bake into funky shapes!
If you want smaller cookies, use a tablespoon scoop and decrease the baking time.

More Easter Desserts You’ll Love

As much as I love these cookies, they may not be the right dessert to serve after a big family Easter dinner. Leave a couple out for the Easter bunny. Or wrap a one or two in a cellophane bag tied with pretty ribbons for an Easter favor. Here are a few more ideas for Easter Desserts:

Easter Bunny Cut Out Cookies from Princess Pinky Girl
Classic Carrot Cake
Lemon Curd Tart
Lemon Meringue Pie
Coconut Cupcakes
Hummingbird Cake
Strawberry Cheesecake Trifle
Classic Strawberry Shortcake
More of the Best Holiday Recipes
More of the Best Cookie Recipes

Other Recipes Utilizing Brown Butter

If you’re new to brown butter and want to try it in some more recipes, I recommend these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Roasted Asparagus with Balsamic Brown Butter, easy Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars, or Brown Butter Crepes.

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