Cookie butter is one of the most dangerously delicious things you can have in your house. It’s a lightly-spiced addictively snackable spread that is perfect in desserts, wonderful on toast, and fun to just enjoy by the spoonful. Using browned butter to make it is diabolical, elevating an already amazing spread into god-tier territory.
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What Is Cookie Butter, and Why Make it at Home?
Cookie butter is like peanut butter made of cookies. There are no peanuts involved, but that’s basically the texture. And you can use it in a lot of the same ways—spread on toast, as part of a cheesecake or buttercream, or to fill a pastry.
Making your own cookie butter at home means that you can control the consistency and ingredients. But perhaps even more importantly it means you can make it using browned butter, which adds a delicious layer of nutty caramel flavour to the cookie butter which blows store-bought right out of the water.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Speculoos cookies are thin, crisp, and spiced biscuits that form the bulk of the cookie butter. You can use any brand, but Lotus is the most popular and readily available.
- Unsalted butter is browned before being added to the cookies to liquify the mixture. Browning the butter toasts the milk solids, lending the cookie butter a ton of flavour. You may need to use additional melted butter or neutral oil to adjust the consistency of the cookie butter.
- Cinnamon is optional, but adds a nice touch of warmth and coziness.
- Salt balances and enhances the flavour. I like using fine sea salt.
How to Use Cookie Butter
- To make buttercream or frosting
- Fill breads and pastries such as donuts, muffins, and babkas
- In desserts like ice cream, mousse, or cheesecake
- To spread on toast or a muffin
This cookie butter firms up in the fridge because of all the butter in it. To use it as a spread or add it to a
Storing Homemade Cookie Butter
Cookie butter keeps well in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 3–4 weeks, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
You can put the cookies in a ziploc bag and use a rolling pin to crush them as finely as possible, and combine that with the other ingredients. The cookie butter won’t be quite as smooth as using a food processor, but will still be delicious!
Store-bought cookie butter is made using industrial equipment that can get the ingredients much smoother than any home kitchen equipment possibly could. It also contains emulsifiers that help it reach a consistency you can’t easily achieve at home. The good news is your homemade cookie butter won’t have any additives in it, beyond whatever is in the speculoos cookies you use.
When it’s first blended, the cooke butter should have a runny and pourable texture. Aim for it to be somewhere between heavy cream and sour cream in consistency. It will solidify when chilled in the fridge, and then warm up to a spreadable consistency at room temperature.
You can use a good blender to puree the mixture. Homemade cookie butter will always be a little grainier than store-bought because it’s made using emulsifiers and industrial equipment.
Did you Try This Recipe?
Leave a comment below and let me know how it turned out! And while you’re at it, please leave a star rating—it helps other bakers find this recipe!
Homemade Cookie Butter
Ingredients
Method
- Place 70 g unsalted butter in a light-coloured saucepan, and melt over medium low heat. Continue heating while stirring constantly until the milk solids in the butter turn a toasty brown colour. Take off the heat and leave to cool slightly so you don't damage your food processor with piping-hot butter.
- Add 220 g speculoos cookies to a food processor and blitz to a fine crumb. Pour in the cooled but still liquid browned butter, and process until smooth. If it's still looking sandy or too thick, add a little melted butter or neutral-flavoured oil to thin it out. Keep in mind it will thicken and solidify in the fridge, so you want it to be quite loose and pourable at this stage—somewhere between heavy cream and sour cream in consistency.
- Add ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon and large pinch fine sea salt and process to combine. At this point if you want to make it smoother, you can add it to a blender and blend until smooth. It will never be as smooth as store-bought cookie butter, which is made using industrial equipment and includes stabilizers and emulsifiers, but a good blender will get you pretty close.
- Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate. Once cold, the cookie butter will solidify so you'll need to bring it back to room temperature to spread it or mix it into a cheesecake or other dessert recipe. It should last 2–3 weeks in the fridge, or frozen for up to 3 months.
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