Spiced Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies

In today’s post: These are the perfect oatmeal cookie! Soft and incredibly chewy with rich flavors from brown butter and pumpkin spice.

Best Oatmeal Cookie

Sometimes I forget how truly delicious a really good oatmeal cookie can be. Today’s cookie recipe is perfectly chewy, with a rich flavor that comes from browning the butter. That extra step is well worth the effort – it adds a few minutes to the prep time but makes the finished cookies taste so much better! And once the butter is browned you can stir up the dough in one bowl with a wooden spoon and have it in the oven in minutes. No need to haul out your mixer, and no need to chill the dough before baking.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

The other flavor component that makes these oatmeal cookies so delicious is pumpkin pie spice. Now these are not pumpkin cookies; there’s no pumpkin in them. But you’ll use pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon to give them a really gorgeous, spiced flavor that just feels like fall. I put an entire tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice in these cookies and honestly, I think you could even use more if you wanted!

Ingredients

These beautifully chewy spiced oatmeal cookies don’t require any fancy ingredients. Here’s what you need:

• Butter: I always use salted butter for baking. If you use unsalted butter, you’ll want to increase the salt amount.
• Eggs
• Brown Sugar: You can use either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar, but dark brown will give you a slightly deeper flavor.
• Vanilla Extract
• All Purpose Flour
• Oats: I use old fashioned oats in this recipe to give them loads of texture and chewiness.
• Salt
• Baking Soda
• Pumpkin Pie Spice: Most oatmeal cookie recipes call for just a hint of cinnamon, but we are going all in on the spice for this recipe. If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice on hand you can substitute apple pie spice, or cinnamon plus a healthy dash of nutmeg, ground ginger, cloves and allspice.

How to Brown Butter

To get plenty of flavor in these cookies, you’ll start by browning the butter. This is easy and it smells so good! Place the butter in a large saucepan and melt it over medium high heat, stirring constantly (I like to use a silicone spatula but you can also use a wooden spoon). Let the butter come to a boil, continuing to stir. It will start to foam and sizzle. Keep stirring for 5-8 minutes, until the butter has turned a deep golden brown and you can see brown flecks at the bottom of the pan. It will smell rich and a little nutty. Remove from heat immediately and pour into a heat proof bowl, scraping all the brown bits into the bowl (those are flavorful milk solids). Let it cool for 5 minutes, then you can mix up the cookie dough in that same bowl.