Oatmeal Browned Butter Cream Pies
While I was making my gluten free Browned Butter Oatmeal Cookies I had a light bulb moment! What if I turned these into oatmeal cream pies? But not just any cream filling. How about using browned butter as the base? Absolute genius! And Oatmeal Browned Butter Cream Pies were born, so-to-speak. The Browned Butter Cream is also spiced with garam masala and ginger which enhances the flavor of the butter and adds another dimension of flavor to the overall cookie and cream combo.
Making Browned Butter
Making browned butter is very simple, but it helps to know what to watch for so that you get as much flavor as possible without burning the butter. Begin by melting the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter has melted completely it will likely start to pop and splatter. Resist the temptation to turn the heat down (it should be on medium heat). Instead, stir the butter, making sure to scrape the bottom. This will prevent the butter from popping or splattering. Infact, if you do this from the beginning when the butter first begins to melt, it won’t splatter at all.
After about 7 minutes or so, the butter will start to foam and may try to crawl up the side of the pan. Keep stirring and within a few minutes, you will begin to see light brown specks revealing themselves in the foam. The specks will gradually get darker and you will notice a nutty, toffee-like aroma. Lift the pan off the heat to reduce the foam from time to time and you will see the full color of the butter. Once it resembles the color of maple syrup, remove from heat and let it cool at room temp or in the fridge.
You can make the browned butter several days ahead and store it in the fridge until you are ready to bake. Since you will need a total of 2 cups of browned butter for the cookies and the filling, you can create one large batch, allow it to cool then divide it. However, if you do it this way, be sure to mix it very well prior to dividing it. The browned bits will settle to the bottom as it cools and that where a ton of flavor is, so you want to make sure that it gets into both mixtures.
Old Fashioned vs Instant Oatmeal
Old Fashioned style oats is what you want for this recipe. They provide the right amount of chew and texture for this recipe. Instant oats are more refined and would absorb more moisture from the batter which would likely change the texture and consistency a significant amount. I use Bob’s Red Mill gluten free Old Fashioned Rolled Oats for this recipe.
Mixing the Gluten Free Browned Butter Oatmeal Cookie Batter
In a medium sized bowl, stir the oatmeal, flours, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together with a large spoon. Set that aside while you combine the wet ingredients in another bowl with a hand mixer.
Once the browned butter has cooled at least to room temp, it is ready to combine with the brown sugar. Then add the whole egg and egg yolk, then the vanilla. Skipping the whites on the second egg is what allows the cookie to have that chewy texture instead of a drier cake-like texture. So resist the temptation to add a second whole egg!
Combine the oats mixture with the wet batter using a large spoon or spatula. This will take a little muscle and a minute or two to get it all worked in. The batter may be a little crumbly. It isn’t a very wet batter. At this point, you can mix in up to 1 ½ cups of add ins. I only used raisins in this version, but you can use raisins, chopped walnuts or chocolate chips. Or you can use a combination of them. I wouldn’t try to get more than a total of 1 ½ cups total though. That’s about all the batter can handle and keep the cookie from falling apart.
And Bake!
I use a small cookie scoop that holds a heaping tablespoon of batter to create more evenly sized cookies. Feel free to roll the batter in your hands to create a ball of dough for more circular shaped cookies if you’d like. They do spread a good amount, so I keep about 2 inches between each mound of batter.
The cookies only need to bake for 10 minutes. They will still look a little wet on top and will be very soft when you remove them from the oven. That’s okay! Let them cool completely on the cookie tray before moving them and they will cool to perfect chewy-crisp perfection!
The Next Level Filling
Make sure that the Browned Butter has become solid and is cooled completely in the fridge before making the cream filling. Combine the chilled browned butter, powdered sugar, garam masala and ginger in a small bowl. Using a hand mixer, combine on a low speed until the powdered sugar has worked into the butter. It will be quite dry at first, but it will come together in about a minute. Then turn the speed to high and whip until fluffy. Taste and add more garam masala and or ginger if you’d like.
Assemble the Oatmeal Browned Butter Cream Pies
Transfer the Browned Butter Cream to a piping bag or zippered bag with a corner cut off to work as a piping bag. Assemble the Oatmeal Browned Butter Cream Pies by piping a small ring of cream into the center of the bottom of one cookie. Stay about ¼” from the edge of the cookie. Place another cookie on top to sandwich together and press gently so that the cream will spread evenly toward the edge. Continue until all cookies are filled and enjoy!
More Gluten Free Cookies
Check out these recipes for more gluten free cookie goodness: Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, College Dorm Cookies, Dirty Snowballs, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies Naked Cut Out Cookies, Classic Macaroons, Hamantaschen and Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
Oatmeal Browned Butter Cream Pies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter (browned and cooled)
- 1 ½ cups light brown sugar
- 1 whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cup old fashioned oats (gluten free)
- ¾ cup gluten free flour blend with xanthan gum
- ¼ cup almond flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp fine salt
- 1 ½ cups* raisins, chopped walnuts and/or chocolate chips (*total combined amount if mixed)
Browned Butter Cream
- 1 cup butter (browned and cooled)
- 1 ¾ cups powdered sugar
- ½ tsp garam masala (more if you'd like)
- ¼ tsp ground ginger (more if you'd like)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment.
- Heat the butter in a saucepan while stirring continuously to prevent splattering until the butter solids begin to foam and brown. Once browned to a caramel or maple syrup color, remove from heat and let cool at room temp or in the fridge.
- In a medium bowl, combine the oats, flours, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
- Once the browned butter has cooled at least to room temp (it is fine if it chills completely to fridge temp), combine it with the brown sugar in a large bowl using a hand mixer on a medium-high speed.
- Add in the egg and yolk, then the vanilla. Blend with the mixer until fully combined.
- With a large spatula, stir the oat mixture in by hand, then stir in any raisins, nuts or chocolate chips.
- Using a small cookie scoop or tablespoon, place generous tablespoon-sized mounds of dough on the lined baking sheets approximately 2 inches apart. The cookies will spread quite a bit while cooking. You don’t need to flatten out the mounds of dough. You can roll them to keep the shape more uniform if you’d like.
- Bake for 10 minutes, then remove and let cool completely before removing from the baking sheet. They will crumble very easily if you remove them before they have cooled.
For the Browned Butter Cream
- Make sure that the Browned Butter has become solid and is cooled completely in the fridge before making the cream.
- Combine the chilled browned butter, powdered sugar, garam masala and ginger in a small bowl. Using a hand mixer, combine on a low speed until the powdered sugar has worked into the butter. It will be quite dry at first, but it will come together in about a minute. Then turn the speed to high and whip until fluffy.
- Transfer the Browned Butter Cream to a piping bag or zippered bag with a corner cut off to work as a piping bag.
Assembling the Cream Pies
- Assemble the Oatmeal Browned Butter Cream Pies by piping a small ring of cream into the center of the bottom of one cookie. Stay about ¼” from the edge of the cookie. Place another cookie on top to sandwich together and press gently so that the cream will spread evenly toward the edge. Continue until all cookies are filled and enjoy!
