Super soft and chewy brown sugar cookies—no mixer required!
Sometimes I like cookies with a lot going on. Chips of chocolate, swirls of peanut butter, butterscotch morsels, chunks of nuts, stuffed with caramel, and other delightful candies. Sprinkle cookies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, frosted cookies—the more stuff going on, the better.
But not all the time.
Sometimes I prefer a pure, simple cookie like sugar cookies without the icing. (I can’t believe I’m saying that because I love icing!) Today’s recipe highlights my favorite flavor: brown sugar. Moist, molasses-spiked brown sugar in every single bite. Soft, chewy, and kissed with cinnamon. These simple brown sugar cookies are undeniably impressive.
They’re not at all “plain.” Rather, today’s cookies are exploding with flavor.
You’re going to recognize today’s cookie recipe. It’s a spin-off recipe of my chewy chocolate chip cookies. I used a few of the same ingredient ratios and recipe techniques in today’s brown sugar cookies.
Start with melted butter. Most of the cookies I make call for creaming softened butter with the sugars. However, sometimes I prefer to use melted butter instead of creaming it. Melted butter, when paired with the correct ratio of dry ingredients, increases the chewy factor in the baked cookie. Since you are using melted butter, you don’t need a mixer for this cookie recipe!
You’re also going to use only brown sugar in this cookie recipe (except for the rolling… more on that below). 1 and 1/4 cups of dark brown sugar bring so much moisture to these baked cookies, as well as a modest molasses flavor. Light brown sugar may easily be substituted here!
In the original chocolate chunk cookie from which this recipe is adapted, I call for 1 egg and 1 egg yolk. Today, you just need 1 egg. 1 egg and less flour than the original recipe. Don’t worry, these cookies are still just as chewy! You’ll also add a touch of cinnamon to the cookie dough. The cinnamon is completely optional, but the pronounced brown sugar flavor paired with the slight kiss of cinnamon spice really takes these cookies to the next level!
Look at how thick these cookies are. To achieve their thick texture, chill the cookie dough. Also, I make sure there is enough flour to soak up the melted butter. Melted butter is greasy and unless there is enough dry ingredients to soak it all up, you’re going to have some cookie spreading sadness!
I also add a bit of cornstarch to the cookie dough. Cornstarch thickens cookie dough just as it thickens gravies, soups, and jams. It’s a miracle worker in cookie recipes, like shortbread and salted vanilla toffee cookies!
Don’t you love the brown sugar cookies’ crinkled tops? That’s achieved by slightly pressing the cookies down. After chilling the cookie dough and rolling the dough in a bit of sugar, you’ll bake them. Now, pay attention to this: Remove the cookies from the oven after 8-9 minutes, gently press down on the tops with the back of a spoon or fork, and then place them back into the oven for 1-2 more minutes. Why are you doing that? Not only so you can achieve some crinkly tops, but also because the cookies need a little help spreading during bake time. You could always just press the cookie tops down after the entire bake time, but then your cookies may just look like you carelessly smashed them down. I feel that they looked better when put back into the oven for 1-2 minutes after pressing down. I’m all about pretty cookies, ok?
I have a confession. We’re heading to a work holiday party and clearly, I can’t go empty handed. However, I made these cookies two days ago. And guess what? They are STILL just as soft on day 3 as they were on day 1. And to be completely honest, their cinnamon and brown sugar flavors are heavily pronounced today. You know a cookie recipe is a winner when its softness isn’t compromised as the days go by. I just love that about this recipe! True “soft-batch” style, just like the cookies you get at bakeries and those tempting mall kiosks.
If you love these cookies, be sure to try my brown sugar shortbread next!
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Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 20 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Super soft and chewy brown sugar cookies – no mixer required!
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch*
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (use 1 teaspoon if you love cinnamon)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled*
- 1 and 1/4 cups (250g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup (67g) granulated sugar, for rolling
Instructions
- Toss together the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium size bowl, whisk the melted butter and brown sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg. Finally, whisk in the vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft, yet thick. Cover the dough and chill for 2 hours, or up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory.
- Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow to slightly soften at room temperature for 10 minutes if you had it chilling for more than 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F (163°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Pour the granulated sugar into a bowl. Take 2 scant Tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball, then roll into the sugar. Place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets.
- Bake for 8-9 minutes. Remove from the oven and gently press the top of the cookie down with the back of a utensil or even use your fingers. You’re trying to obtain a crinkly top. Place back into the oven for 2-4 more minutes. The total time these cookies are in the the oven is 10-13 minutes. The cookies will be puffy and still appear very soft in the middle. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for ten minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. They will continue to cook in the center on the baking sheet after being removed from the oven.
- Cookies will stay fresh covered at room temperature for 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature, if desired, before serving. Unbaked cookie dough balls (before rolling in sugar) will freeze well for up to 3 months. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, pre-heat the oven, then roll in granulated sugar. Bake as directed. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Butter: Simply melt the butter in the microwave. Let it cool down for about 5-10 minutes before mixing with the other ingredients. Don’t want to cook that egg with the hot butter!
- Cornstarch: Cornstarch helps promise a softer, thicker cookie. I highly recommend it. I use it in my chocolate chip cookies and shortbread cookies, too. Feel free to leave it out if needed.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
These were delicious and a big hit with my whole family! I didn’t achieve the thick and pillowy ones pictured in the recipe, though. I wish I knew what happened! They were amazing nonetheless, just more like a snickerdoodle.
This recipe is great! One of my friends doesn’t eat butter so replaces butter with oil (1cup of butter = ~3/4 oil) and they were still great!! Cinnamony and delicious! Another thing I did was when making the ‘crinkle’ I actually used the back of a teaspoon measure and made little craters which afterwards I filled with strawberry jam and they were so so so yummy! Definitely recommend the jam!
TLDR: they overspread, basically taste like sugar cookies with a hint of cinnamon (good, but also kinda boring), and I’d make some changes next time.
I weighed my ingredients, including butter and even reduced it slightly after seeing some people had issues with overspreading. They did overspread. Tried freezing dough balls for 10 minutes to see if it made a difference before putting in oven… it didn’t. (This was in addition to refrigerating for 2+ hours).
Maybe my oven is to blame as I’m in Asia and have to bake in a tinier oven than standard American ones. A lot of cookie recipes seem to overspread for me, so that’s probably the issue. It may just be a matter of baking at a cooler temp but I don’t know how much cooler.
Just looking at the recipe, I was already considering how it might benefit from some minor changes, but I like to try recipes as written before customizing so I give it a fair shake first.
I did end up rolling some in pumpkin spice sugar and think they benefited from the added complexity.
Next time, I think I’ll try doing both some finely chopped pecans and pumpkin spice sugar. Subbing some of the vanilla for almond extract might also lend a more interesting flavor profile.
Hi Alice, thank you so much for your feedback. This is actually an old recipe we are reworking, and there will be an update coming soon! In the meantime, it may help to read through these tips to help prevent cookies from overspreading.
these are incredible! so soft and thick, they literally melt in your mouth. i browned the butter before adding it and rolled them in cinnamon sugar (because i love cinnamon) too and they turned out incredible. love this recipe!
I’m looking for a cookie recipe that had chewey butterscotch in them?
Hi Linda, We have a recipe for soft and chewy oatmeal scotchies, which use butterscotch chips. They do melt a bit (just like chocolate chips would) but they aren’t chewy like a liquid caramel would be.
This recipe isn’t very good
really seth? such a hater. I thought this recipe was delish and I am making them again right now.
Used allspice and ginger it make it a gingerdoodle, was big enough for family of 10, great summer activity, can use oil in place of butter and brown sugar in place of molasses, and it still tastes great!
Perfect! I also used a no sodium baking soda that did not affect the taste AT ALL!
Came out perfect. I chilled in the freezer for 15 minutes instead, and used ginger instead of cinnamon, and brown sugar on the outside as well. They are a very balanced sweetness, I half expected them to be too sweet but they aren’t at all
Amazing recipe !!! I added some nutmeg and it tasted amazing I totally recommend.
Mmmm yummy
These are definitely hitting the spot. I’m pregnant and craving that brown sugar/butter combo.
They’re very rich and buttery, so I wouldn’t recommend them unless you’re looking for that super decadent delicious buttery goodness.
Mine didn’t crinkle at all, and I made them exactly how was described (except I used salted butter as it was all I had unfortunately). They’re still amazing though. Like a sugar cookie but with brown sugar instead.
I wonder how it would taste if you browned the butter a bit first? Perhaps I’ll try that next time.
Super easy recipe, highly recommend for my fellow pregnant mammas who are craving that flavour combo.
For scoring
I give this recipe 5 stars because of the following:
Extremely easy recipe
Recipe was easy follow along
Flavours were well balanced (I assume they would have actually come out perfect had I used unsalted butter)
The bake time is reasonable and low maintenance
The cookies are enjoyable days beyond the initial day
Thank you for this recipe! I will definitely be looking for more of yours ❤️
These were wayyyyy too sweet, like you could literally feel yourself biting on sugar. Flavor was okay but overwhelmed by the sweetness. I might try to fix the rest of the dough to make it less sweet.
I’m also wondering where I can find the nutritional information?
Hi Emma, We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
I made this recipe and loved it!! I also added some semi sweet chips to half of the batter and it was so good! Also didn’t have granulated sugar so I used powdered and it was delish!
Made recipe exact same and it came out not fluffy at all. It came out flat and the middle was beyond doughy and hard on the outside.
I loved the recipe but my cookies came out very flat compared to yours. What did I do wrong? They tasted great but the look…not so great. Please help for next time.
Hi Harmony, thank you so much for giving these a try! There are quite a few different reasons why cookies can go flat. Here are all of our best tips for how to prevent cookies from spreading.
I just made these and something is wrong. They spread very quickly, there was no way to press them down, and when finished baking, they came out thin and flat. What happened?
Hi R. Crocker, happy to help. Here’s our best tips for preventing cookies from spreading.
Thanks for that. But I followed the recipe instructions exactly. Including the chilling for minimum of 2 hours.
This is the second time in 1 week I am making these cookies and they are the best cookies I’ve ever made and the softest and we didn’t even have any cornstarch! Thank you so much for the recipe!
I’ve made these two times without much deviation from the recipe (and I weigh my ingredients) and both times the dough has been very soft and wet. They’re rollable when chilled, bake up fine and taste good but there hasn’t seemed to be any need to do the pressing down partway through baking so I skip it. I’m wondering if maybe it’s from using dark brown sugar instead of light and the higher moisture content? Anyway just fyi for other bakers.
I made this recipe as given with the single addition of ground ginger. So yummy! My best friend said they are officially her favorite cookie of all time. So, yeah, can absolutely recommend.
I always considered sugar cookies as the candy corn of the cookie world: a waste of butter and sugar. This recipe changed my mind. These cookies are so delicious all of my dinner guests preferred the sugar cookies over chocolate chip cookies. Let me say that again: people actively chose something that didn’t have chocolate.
Sally, you’re truly a magician. Thank you for opening a whole new world of cookies!
Hey! Can I make this without cornstarch ?
Hi Les! The cookies won’t be as soft and thick. But if you don’t mind that – you can make without the cornstarch.
I enjoy using all your recipes and this one is great. I had I adjust it to be vegan/ vegetarian and the results were so good. So many compliments
Easy and tasty, but it makes a small batch of 20. I used light brown sugar and a tad more cinnamon. Next time I will increase the cinnamon even more. I needed 30 cookies so made mine smaller and cooked for minimum times. Turned out well…most of mine were 2.5 inches. I needed something everyone would like that was easy and not chocolate so this fit the bill. I want to try them with cinnamon chips too! But the flavor is nice without changes.