Soft and slightly crinkly, these melt-in-your-mouth maple brown sugar cookies are made with all brown sugar and infused with warm tones of maple syrup.
This is a favorite cold-weather cookie of mine that I posted last year, and the photos have been updated & recipe has been updated to include metric measurements.
2016 has been a hectic, stressful, exhausting, but mostly, joyful, blur.
I’ve baked more (maple brown sugar) cookies than any other year of my life, learned more about Pinterest than anyone should ever need to know, slept less (mostly because of all the time spent on Pinterest — not even kidding), decoded my Rubik’s cube of a camera just a little bit more, and improved my photography as a result (see today’s pictures and the original pictures at the bottom of the post for comparison).
I’ve even begun to dabble in video on my Facebook page, but that’s an entirely new beast that I plan on going after with torch and pitchfork in 2017.
Sure, I’ve got a long way to go and I’m looking forward to growing this space even more in 2017, but right now I’m just so grateful for everything this year has been for me.
But now, let’s talk cookies.
I shared these maple brown sugar cookies over a year ago, but they were in dire need of a new photo shoot.
They’re one of my favorites, and actually served as the inspiration for my Worst Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe after I realized how utterly amazing maple syrup tasted in cookie dough.
Maple syrup has a wonderful and warm flavor to it, an almost “cozy” taste, and it goes perfectly with a warm plate of cookies in the cold weather — they’re great fall or winter cookies and belong next to a glass of milk for Santa on Christmas Eve (only one day left!).
I’ve made these cookies many times using both pure (pricey!) maple syrup and plain old Aunt Jemima, and I’ve finally admitted to myself that I firmly prefer the inauthentic maple syrup.
Is that embarrassing? I feel like I should prefer the fancy tree-tapped stuff, but I don’t.
These will still certainly taste wonderful with pure maple syrup, but faux-syrup seems to be more prominent, more fragrant, and is far less expensive!
Combined with all brown sugar, these cookies are soft, chewy and simply perfect and rich in fall flavors. The dough is amazing — don’t taste it if you can help it, because it’s addictive.
These maple brown sugar cookies nearly melt in your mouth– the maple flavor a subtle warmth on your tongue.
If all goes as planned, this will be my last post of 2016. I have a lot of trouble going any length of time without posting, but I’m going to try to take off from doing so next week — I’ll still be doing plenty of behind-the-scenes work, though.
Before I figuratively sign off for the year, though, I wanted to give a special THANK YOU to all of you, for visiting my website, trying my recipes, leaving kind comments and writing encouraging e-mails. It’s because of you that I have been able to build Sugar Spun Run up to be what it has become in 2016.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year — let’s make 2017 a great one!!
Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter melted and cooled (226g)
- 1 ½ cup brown sugar tightly packed (300g)
- ⅓ cup maple syrup (pure or faux -- I honestly prefer Aunt Jemima!)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon maple extract optional, but this will give your cookies a distinct maple flavor.
- 1 large egg (room temperature & lightly beaten.)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (375g)
- 2 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Granulated sugar for rolling or sprinkling
Instructions
- Melt butter in large, microwave-safe bowl and allow to cool completely.
- Stir in brown sugar and maple syrup until completely combined.
- Stir in vanilla extract and maple extract (if using).
- Add egg and stir until well-combined.
- In separate, medium-sized bowl, combine flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Gradually (about ¼ of the mixture at a time), add the flour mix to the butter mixture and stir until completely combined.
- Chill in refrigerator for at least two hours (may chill longer, up to 5 days).
- Once dough is about 30 minutes from being ready, preheat oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Once dough has chilled, scoop into round 1 ½" scoops. Roll in or sprinkle lightly with granulated sugar and bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet. Do not put dough for following batches on hot cookie sheets, cookie sheets should always be room temperature or colder.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Original photos
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Maple Brown Sugar Cookies were originally posted 11/18/15 — Updated 12/23/16
Miriam Rose Blanar
I’m not sure where I went wrong. I followed the recipe to a T and they would not spread at all. They still tasted amazing though.
Sam
I’m so sorry this happened, Miriam! Did you happen to weigh your flour? It sounds like there may have been a touch too much flour in them. 🙁
Miriam
I did weigh it, but my scale has been acting up lately. Sometimes it switches to another metric system like ml instead of staying on grams. I figured it must have been the flour because the dough was slightly dry, but I didn’t want to waste them so I just bakes them anyways. Everyone loved them though. I need to try again and really pay attention to my scale next time. I put maple glaze on them so I think it worked out OK.
Sam
I hope they turn out better next time! 🙂
Susan MacGregor
Sam,
These were delicious. I was looking for a copycat type of recipe similar to the Tate’s vanilla maple cookies. These aren’t as crisp as Tate’s, but I love the softer chewy centers with crisp edges of your recipe.
Kennedy
Recommend keeping the dough in the fridge between rolling out batches. The warmer the dough gets, the more the cookies spread. The last batch was paper thin huge disks. Still tasted great. But would recommend keeping the dough cold through baking.
Elizabeth Justus
Fall weather again and this recipe sounds amazing! I would like to add pecans to this recipe. How much would you add and would I have to adjust any of the other ingredients if I added pecans? Thank you again for sharing the recipe!
Sam
Hi Elizabeth I would just chop the pecans up. Use somewhere between 1/2-1 cup and stir them in at the end. You shouldn’t need to adjust anything else. 🙂
Michelle
I am making a new cookie recipe every Sunday, this recipe was last Sunday, cookies were gone by Tuesday and by request making another batch tonight! Our 15 year old son says this is his favorite cookie.
One slight change I did make – since the recipe calls for melted butter I browned the butter 😏
Thank you for the recipe!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Michelle! 🙂
Devon
Hey Sam! Havent tried this one yet but every recipe of yours I’ve tried has been great! I have maple sugar on hand so was.going to roll them in that, do you think I should reduce the syrup or extract if I use maple sugar? Otherwise I will try and report back!
Sam
Hi Devon! I think it would be really tasty to roll them in maple sugar. I personally wouldn’t make any alterations as I like a nice maple flavor. 🙂