Second Helpings #08 / Double Brown Butter Snickerdoodles

Plus how to make the MSG of baking

It’s fair to say that browned butter is a truly fabulous way to boost flavour in baked goods, but have you ever been in a situation where you’ve spent the time and effort browning the butter but then the flavour doesn’t really come through? If so, let me introduce you to my favourite browned butter flavour enhancer, toasted milk powder. When you brown butter, the little flecks of brown you end up with are browned milk solids and milk powder is basically un-toasted milk solids. So what happens when you toast the milk powder? Magic! The resulting powder is like the MSG of baked goods, you wont necessarily detect it in your baking but it will be a big flavour enhancer, giving a warm toasty flavour to anything its used in. Added to browned butter it will enhance the existing flavour, making it more pronounced and bring it fully to the fore. You can also just simply add it to cake batters, cookie doughs and all manner of baked goods. When I used it in the cookie recipe below my partner, Mike, declared that they tasted like they were made with caramelised white chocolate. This makes sense because caramelised milk solids are one of the major flavour contributors in that type of chocolate. As someone obsessed with caramelised white chocolate you, can then, probably understand why I love this stuff so much.