Classic corn cookies just got a touch better with the addition of toasted oats and brown butter. This is a short blog post today because it’s Labor Day Weekend, but the full recipe is in the box below!
If you are looking for crispy edges and chewy centers – plus perfectly crinkled tops? This corn recipe is for you.
PS, these pair exceptionally well with Brown Butter Ice Cream for ice cream sandwiches.
Butter Oat Corn Cookies
These crispy-edged, chewy center corn cookies are the perfect balance of salty and sweet. Brown butter toasts down with oats and chopped corn kernels, infusing the batter with summer corn flavor and the perfect chewy texture. It's a fast recipe, and oh-so good for late summer corn.
Equipment
- 1 small sauté pan
- 1 electric mixer or stand mixer
- 2 half sheet pans
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter 170 grams
- 1/2 cup rolled oats 50 grams
- 1 ear of corn kernels only, 110 grams, roughly chopped
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 3/4 cup and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 170 grams
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar 50 grams
- 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt use half if using Morton’s
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup all-purpose flour 145 grams
- Flaky salt optional for topping
Instructions
- Place a medium sauté pan over medium low heat and add the 170 grams of butter, 50 grams of oats and 110 grams of corn kernels. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the milk solids in the butter begin to brown and the oats take on a golden color, 4-5 minutes.
- Transfer this brown butter + oat + corn mixture to a small heat-proof bowl. To quickly cool the butter to a softened texture, plunge the bowl into a larger bowl of ice water, so that all the sides of the bowl are surrounded by cool water. Whisk the brown butter mixture and it should firm up to softened butter in about 4-5 minutes.
- Add this softened brown butter mixture to a large bowl. Add in one egg and one egg yolk, 170 grams of granulated sugar and 50 grams of brown sugar. Use an electric mixer to beat this together until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes.
- Add in 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. Add 145 grams of all-purpose flour and beat on the lowest setting until the dough is just combined and very fluffy.
- Scoop the dough into 45 gram sized balls. Let these chill in the fridge while you preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In batches, bake the cookies at 350°F for 11-13 minutes, or until the centers no longer look wet. Once they are out of the oven, give the sheet pan one big smack on the counter to let the cookies deflate and get really nice crinkly tops. Sprinkle with flaky salt, if that’s your thing.
- Let cool and then eat!
Justine, I’m confused by the quantities on the corn cookie recipe. A single ear of corn, including the cob, is about 25 grams. It would take many ears to get 110 g of kernels. I’m trying the recipe now with the kernels from just two ears and it makes a batter, not a dough you could form into balls. Maybe there’s a typo somewhere?
Hi Kate! In my experience the kernels from a cob of corn range from 100 grams to 150 grams. For a cob to be 25 grams, it would have to be less than 1/4 cup in volume (since 1/4 cup of nuts, seeds or legumes usually nets out at 30 grams). Were you perhaps referencing a smaller corn varietal like baby corn? The kernels amount should be around 3/4 cup. Since this is such a big difference, I think the issue with your dough is how we measure differently. Are you able to use a scale for the entire recipe? I think that will help solve some things!
If you would pop that 3/4 cup measure for the corn kernels in the ingredients list along with “one ear” and the grams amount, Justine, that could be helpful to cross-check and for anyone using frozen corn who measures by volume.
For some reason I’m not able to leave a comment on the party-sized hummingbird cake recipe, but I have a question:
I really love the components you have put together for the recipe and I’d like to make it for my 40th birthday party! Do you have suggestions for how to translate the recipe to cupcakes (and how many cupcakes it may yield)? I was thinking to add the marmalade as a filling, top with frosting, and then add the crumble. Thank you! 🙂
What about using frozen corn?
Hi! It should be possible, just thaw the corn and strain out any excess water from the thawing process. Ideally this is frozen raw corn, too. But if it’s pre-cooked that should also be fine!
made these today and followed the measured ingredients exactly and they came out PERFECT! Delicious cookie…. thank you!
Hi Justine, this looks delicious! Would it be possible to make it with frozen corn? Thanks!
Hi! It should be possible, just thaw the corn and strain out any excess water from the thawing process. Ideally this is frozen raw corn, too. But if it’s pre-cooked that should also be fine!
Made these from your email yesterday. So good! Turned out beautifully, flavor is amazing.
Are these cookies delightful at written? Absolutely yes.
Did I give into the intrusive thought to give half of my batch the snickerdoodle treatment and dip them into a cinnamon-forward sugar mixture. Also yes. Delicious, plus a bonus craggy topping.
Thanks for getting corn into my cookies this season!
Haven’t baked the cookies yet but the cookie dough is so good (and I never eat raw cookie dough) I had to let you know. Milk Bar who???
I have lots to say about these cookies because I’m a corn FREAK but this was my first time using it in a dessert. Unfortunately, I have the “unable to follow a recipe as written” disease, so I did add vanilla and cinnamon to the dough and rolled the scooped dough balls in cornmeal before baking (for a textured exterior, of course). All good additions, would recommend. 11 minutes was a good bake time for my oven, they probably could even go a little longer.
“Butter” being the first word of the recipe title is accurate: these are BUTTERY. I am not a butter freak, so personally I would scale back a little bit next time. The high butter content combined with the toasted oats does lend itself to a bendy, chewy texture that’s kind of addictive. I think fresh corn is a genius cookie ingredient, the kernels end up as moist sweet bits, almost resembling golden raisins.
As I was making these, I looked around my kitchen at my peaches and grape tomatoes and was thinking about how well summer produce plays together – perhaps a tomato jam swirl in a future rendition of these cookies?? Justine, have your people call me and we’ll workshop this.
In conclusion, these are what you wish oatmeal raisin cookies could be, and a great celebration of sweet corn.
I made these yesterday and they were delicious! I did some cornmeal on the bottom and flaky salt right out of the oven. I also made them a little smaller; 1in cookie scoop at 13 minutes was perfect. I made the second batch a little crispier so about 15 min in the oven, which made it more like a shortbread, crispy all the way through but brought out more butter and corn flavor if possible. Will be adding this to my summer/fall cookie rotation. I may roll them in cornflakes next time.
Justine, these were SPECTACULAR! I’m literally at home sick and was craving a sweet treat, and literally told my husband that only one of your recipes will do because of how careful you are with your testing and development (especially with my limited energy). I followed this recipe exactly as written, and they were beyond delicious. Thank you for sharing these!
Never heard of a corn cookie, but was intrigued. Used canned corn and they turned out amazing. Thanks for a delicious and different recipe.
made it, love it!
have you had experience freezing dough balls of this recipe?
could not stop thinking about these after seeing them on Tiktok. I love the zucchini cookies so much so had to try during peak corn season. I found the batter quite hard to work with and for me it didn’t get as fluffy or firm as the recipe states. My cookies spread a lot and were quite thin but still great flavour. I do want a chocolate chunk or some other added layer of texture though..
Hello! Did you whisk the butter until it was firmed up after browning? Everything you describe would happen if the butter remained in its melted state, but if you cool it to a paste that should fix your issues!
Really can’t say enough about these. Unique, but made with ingredients you probably have on hand. They are best eaten just after cooling, but I’d take one any time. A really nice change of pace from chocolate chips. Any thoughts how you’d modify this particular recipe to make them oatmeal-raisin?
I just tested these out with gluten free flour (part bob’s 1to1 and part cup4cup) and loved them! I just moved and haven’t found my electric mixer yet so I mixed the dough by hand. I imagine the texture might be even better once I find my mixer, so I’ll have to test this out again when I’ve fully unpacked. I chilled my dough for about a half hour before baking, because I’ve found that gluten free dough needs a little extra resting time before you bake to maintain a lighter texture, and these were fabulous. So light and crispy, and a great way to use corn at the end of the season!!
Hi Justine, do you know if I can freeze the dough balls / have a suggestion of how to bake them? Thank you! So excited to try this recipe
Hi! I am so sorry for my delay, but yes absolutely! You can freeze them and then just plan to bake them 2-3 minutes longer than written 🙂
I made these vegan by subbing Miyoko’s butter and two flax eggs. Turned out amazing. Delicious.
So so glad that a vegan version works!
Never left a comment on a recipe before but these turned out PERFECT!!!!!! I made half of them regular, following recipe exactly (needed about 1 and a half ears of corn) and half w roughly chopped 85% dark chocolate, yum! Probably will make the brown butter ice cream to use up some of the cookies. Perfection! (also pro tip for measuring out the cookie dough balls: put your bowl of cookie dough on scale, tare it to zero, and scoop out until it shows -45g)
I’m so so thrilled to hear you liked it!! Also with chocolate it sounds inspired
I honestly tried this recipe because it sounded so peculiar, but it exceeded all expectations and was a hit in my household! I was wondering if this dough is one that could be pre-portioned and frozen to bake later on or if the corn would negatively affect that process?
It can absolutely be frozen! Just bake them for 2-3 extra minutes. And I’m so thrilled you liked them 🙂
one of the best cookies i have ever had, let alone made at home.
will be stocking my freezer with these
make these now. you will not regret it.
I am so so so happy to hear this – thank you for taking the time to leave such a nice comment and rating!
I’m really not sure what went wrong with this recipe. I followed the measurements exactly using a scale, yet I struggled with browning butter for the first time in my life and ended up giving up after it took over an episode of my show with no browning. The dough texture turned out correct, but the baked cookie tasted way too eggy and the middle never fully cooked through. The corn was also chewy and stuck to my teeth and the oat flavor and texture was barely there (possibly from overcooking in the failed butter-browning process?). I ended up throwing out the batch because it was so gross. I’m still giving this 4 stars because the video made the cookies look amazing, and I’m sure it was user error somewhere on my part—I just can’t figure out what went wrong.
I made these earlier this week, and they are so surprisingly delicious! I also brought some to my friend’s house, and all four friends liked them, too! My altitude is 5280 feet, so I used the King Arthur high altitude, baking guide for adjustments for that. However, even Still, the texture turned out to be more like cornbread than shown in the pictures above. I gave this a four out of five because of that, even though I followed the directions listed above and the high altitude guide. It has a pretty seasoned home cook and baker, I was surprised at that texture. Any tips on what adjustments I otherwise could make would be really helpful!
Hello! Even with altitude, I would follow the recipe as written next time for the best texture 🙂 The King Arthur guide usually suggests adding more flour and I would disagree with that if you want the texture you see in the images here!
These are incredible and interesting. A combo I thirst for in a dessert! We had them crumbled over ice cream and freshly picked Pacific Northwest blackberries.
These were so delicious! Shared them with plenty of friends who were pretty skeptical of corn in cookies, but they ended up being a huge hit!
Music to my ears – so glad everyone liked it!