Joy the Baker

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

by 51 Comments

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

Well, hello. Hi. How are you? Glad tidings. Happy Holidays. I like your hair.

Are you doing all of the lovely winter things? Hot chocolate? Mittens? Ski caps? Snow men?

I’d like to bring you stories of frolicking snowball fights and ski lift passes, but I’m terrified of both flying ice balls and ski lifts. Instead I could tell you about this tremendous head cold and how I’m trying to drown it in ginger tea and cookies.

White Chocolate and grapefruit. Let’s stay on our toes and in the game!

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

The thing is, we’ve got to get all the tasty goodness of juicy pink grapefruits into these cookies without the actual juice of the juicy pink grapefruit… you know what I mean?  

Zest is the answer. All the intense flavor, none of the juice to dilute our cookies.

To work this magic, we rub together grapefruit zest and granulated sugar.  Rub with either the back of a spoon or your fingers to release the oils (and thereby the flavor of grapefruit) into the sugar.  

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

Grapefruit sugar is creamed with softened butter until fluffy.  As an added bonus, this also smells divine.  

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

Brown sugar and cooled brown butter are added to the fluffy butter.  Combined.  Good and plenty.  

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

Large eggs: one whole plus one yolk.  

Oh!  I used electric hand-beaters for this recipe which I just recently incorporated into my kitchen.  What took me so long?  They’re kinda the best! 

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

Flour, baking soda, and salt.  The usual and essential suspects.  

I like to use a wooden spoon for this part of cookie making.  A wooden spoon usually prevents a flour explosion.  Usually. 

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

White chocolate chips.  An ample amount.  

The cookie dough needs to rest in the refrigerator for an hour.  This is a critical time in which the butter will chill, absorb the liquid from the eggs, generally relax, and we’ll have an hour to test our willpower and patience. 

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

Because I am so utterly predictable, I topped each cookie dough ball with a sprinkling of coarse sea salt before baking.  I love to balance the sweetness of the cookie and white chocolate with a pinch of salt.  

The grapefruit really shines through in these cookies.  Present, delicate, with unflinching eye contact… like quite the lady.  

Print

Grapefruit White Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies

Sweet cookies flavored with zippy grapefruit zest. Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Exactly just right!

  • Author: Joy the Baker
  • Prep Time: 80
  • Cook Time: 12
  • Total Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 cup (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons grapefruit zest
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

Instructions

  1. Place half the butter (8 tablespoons) in a medium skillet. Melt the butter over medium heat, swirling it in the pan occasionally. It’ll foam and froth as it cooks, and start to crackle and pop. Once the crackling stops, keep a close eye on the melted butter, continuing to swirl the pan often. The butter will start to smell nutty, and brown bits will form in the bottom. Once the bits are amber brown (about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes or so after the sizzling stops), remove the butter from the burner and immediately pour it into a small bowl, bits and all. This will stop the butter from cooking and burning. Allow it to cool for 20 minutes.
  2. In a small bowl, rub together the granulated sugar and grapefruit zest until the sugar is fragrant.
  3. Beat the remaining 8 tablespoons softened butter with the grapefruit granulated sugar for 3 to 5 minutes, until the mixture is very smooth.
  4. Beat in the vanilla extract.
  5. Pour the cooled brown butter into the bowl, along with the brown sugar. Beat for 2 minutes, until smooth; the mixture will lighten in color and become fluffy.
  6. Add the egg and egg yolk, and beat for one minute more.
  7. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda, beating on low speed just until everything is incorporated.
  8. Use a spatula to fold in the white chocolate chips and pecans and finish incorporating all of the dry flour bits into the dough.
  9. Scoop the dough onto a piece of parchment paper, waxed paper, or plastic wrap. Flatten it slightly into a thick disk, and refrigerate for at leas t1 hour. About 15 minutes before you’re ready to begin baking, place racks in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat your oven to 350°F.
  10. Scoop the dough in 2 tablespoon-sized balls onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave about 2? between the cookies; they’ll spread as they bake.
  11. Sprinkle the cookies with sea salt, to taste — as much or as little as you like.
  12. Bake the cookies for 12 to 15 minutes, until they’re golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and allow them to rest on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes before moving them.
  13. Serve warm; or cool completely, and store airtight at room temperature for several days. For longer storage, wrap well and freeze.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Axel

    I’ve made these twice. First time i just followed the recipe. Second time i switched the grape fruit zest to lime zest wich was awsome. Now I’m making them again but going a bit wild and using orange zest and adding saffron for a more luxurious touch. Can’t wait to see the end result!

    Reply

  2. Audrey Hirschl

    Hi Joy! Quick question for you–would it be okay to freeze the dough for baking later? I can’t get enough of these cookies and would love to make a few batches at once for later cooking. Thank you! :)

    Reply

  5. Allison C.

    I found this recipe randomly and your blog and am so happy I did! I made these last night and they are AWESOME! I love the hint of grapefruit in each bite. I only refrigerated for 30 minutes (because I got too excited) and they still came out delicious. I had some dough left over and made them the following day and can say they are even MORE yummy… it definitely makes it worth it to chill for at least an hour. Thank you!

    Reply

  6. Kelsey

    Does the recipe have pecans or not? The instructions mention them but they aren’t in the pictures or the recipe, would a cup be appropriate or are they not supposed to have pecans, is it a type for another recipe you copy and pasted? Thanks for your help!

    Reply

  9. bmorecupcake

    Thanks not only for posting an innovative recipe, but a timely one on the exact day I searched for recipes with grapefruit zest but not grapefruit juice. (I had overpaid for grapefruit and wanted to get my money’s worth.)

    The cookies are great. I’ve made two batches already. I had some comments, though, mostly for future readers. First, as Lucy mentioned above, the recipe instructions call for pecans, but pecans aren’t listed in the ingredients. My guess is the recipe was copy-pasted from a previous post and Joy forgot to omit the part about pecans.

    Second, if this is the first time you are browning butter, like it was for me, read about the process somewhere before starting. I had the butter explode on me once, even though I was swirling constantly. I read somewhere that if you put a spoon in the butter, it will break the surface tension and solve the problem. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that didn’t work for me either, and the butter exploded on me again. The third time, I kept agitating the butter with a spoon and that seemed to do the trick. Also, using a medium skillet as instructed seems key; I think the lesser surface area of a small skillet would not let water in the butter evaporate fast enough.

    Third, the cookies are on the sweet side, and I don’t think adding the extra salt balanced the sweetness. I’m of the opinion that salt is used as an enhancer in desserts, not to balance, if that makes sense. I wouldn’t recommend adding the extra sea salt at the end. In fact, I personally felt even 1 teaspoon of table salt in the batter was far too much. I suggest using 1 teaspoon of a coarse salt (I used Diamond Crystal kosher salt) in the batter and enjoying the cookies with black coffee or tea to “balance” the sweetness.

    Lastly, the amount of time I chilled the batter affected my final outcome. If I chilled two hours, I got a result like in the pictures on this post — tender looking with a dimple in the middle. If I chilled overnight, the cookies didn’t deflate in the middle as much after cooling and weren’t as soft in the middle. Both were great, although the latter are less visually appealing in the sense you can’t see the white chocolate chips as well.

    Hope this helps someone.

    Reply

  10. Sara

    I made these and they came out perfectly. They were so delicious. I took them to Sunday Night Family Dinner and they were a HUGE hit. One kid exclaimed, “I ate three!!”

    Reply

  11. Peter

    made these with lemon zest instead of grapefruit – fantastic! the biscuits are crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy in the center. both the browned butter and the zest rubbed into the sugar give this such a beautiful and unique flavour, far above any other cookies I’ve made. Thanks Joy :)

    Reply

  12. sohojoe

    Grapefruit zest! File that firmly under “wish I had thought of that!” Thanks Joy! You’ve done it again. Also loving the ‘one bowl’ technique for this recipe. A great way to keep things in perspective as we head into a crazy new year! So simple and SO delicious. Can’t wait to give it a try!

    Reply

  14. Betty

    These sound insanely delicious :) I need to bake them right away!
    I made some white choc & raspberry cheesecake cookies and I’ve got to say, cookie’s are just the queen of all deserts in my opinion! Have a look at my cookie posts if you’d like.
    Happy New Year!
    Betty x

    The Betty Stamp

    Reply

  20. Fiona

    Can you replace the white chocolate chips with milk chocolate chips or even dark chocolate? I want to make these, but alas I’m out of white chocolate chips!

    Reply

  32. Amanda | The Cinnamon Scrolls

    These look super tasty. I love grapefruit, but whenever I try to bake with it I can never get the intense flavour that I crave. I’ve tried zest, juice, and pulp in the same recipe but it was never strong enough! I never thought to rub the zest into the sugar. I’ll have to give it a go! Thanks for the tip, Joy!

    Reply

  33. Lucy Andresen

    I am going to the store to buy a grapefruit right this minute. One question, pecans are mentioned in the instructions but not the ingredients. What quantity if I add pecans?

    Reply

  36. christinaschueler

    I’ve always found that citrus juice can become bitter from the heat so I always use zest as well. These look incredible, I don’t believe I’ve seen this flavor combo together and I can’t wait to try it!

    Reply

  39. naomicheung

    Sweet baby cheeses Joy – you have absolutely no idea how much happiness you bring into my culinary life. Thank you thank you!! Now making these cookies today will top my “To Do” list.

    Reply

  41. Girl Named Allyn

    You should make Smitten Kitchen’s chicken pho, because it’s pretty much guaranteed to knock a cold on its ass.
    These cookies look amazing, but I already have a long list of recipes from Homemade Decadence (yay Christmas!) to make. My cake pans need to arrive ASAP

    Reply

  44. Maryse

    I have been thinking about how on earth to incorporate grapefruit into cookies after I had amazing grapefruit butterscotch cookies… Here’s my answer, thanks!!

    Reply

  46. Melissa King

    These are beautiful! And I love grapefruit, never had it in cookies! Hope you feel better soon (I had a sinus infection for over a week and was dying so I know how awful that is)!

    Reply

  47. Karen

    These look wonderful. I would make them, but because of medication, I cannot have delicious grapefruit. I will try them using orange zest. Thanks again for a terrific cookie.

    Reply

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