Blonde Chocolate Stuffed Scotchie Cookies 

In case you were wondering, blonde chocolate is white chocolate whose milk solids have been toasted until they brown. This browning gives blonde chocolate its signature golden color and warm, nutty flavor.

I know right?! “Where have you been all my life!”

Of Note: This is not the same as caramelized white chocolate because caramelizing requires the pyrolysis of sugar through thermal decomposition. (basically, melting sugar in temperatures over 300°F (149°C). Because milk solids brown as low as 250°F (120°C), you cannot caramelize white chocolate without first scorching the milk solids it contains. The only way to truly make caramelized white chocolate is to mix caramelized sugar, toasted milk solids, and cocoa butter.

You can purchase blonde online from chocolate brands like Valhrona (Dulcey), Felchlin, Guittard, or Callebaut (Gold). Fair warning it can be expensive, but it may be worth it if you don’t want to put in the time and effort of making blonde chocolate at home.

You can make blonde chocolate two ways:

1. In the Oven: Bake white chocolate on a silicone lined baking sheet to toast it. (Be sure to use high-quality white chocolate that is at least 30% cacao butter.) Preheat your oven to 250°F (120°C). Chop up 2+ bars of high-quality white chocolate and spread it out on the tray. Bake for 15 minutes and remove from the oven. Spread and mix the chocolate around the tray with a spatula. Put the chocolate back in the oven. Remove it every 10 minutes, to mix and spread again, for at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours. Stop when you are happy with the color and flavor. From there you can scrape the toasted chocolate into a bowl and then pour it into molds.

2. On the Stovetop: Mix toasted milk powder with melted white chocolate to create blonde chocolate. first, add as much powdered milk as you’d like to make to a pan. Turn the burner to low/medium-low temperature for about 1 hour. Just like a roux, keep moving the powder around the pan so it doesn’t burn. Breakup any pieces that begin to clump together as best as you can. The powder will go from an ivory color all the way to a toasted deep golden color.

If too much of the milk powder is sticking to the bottom of the pan and you are having trouble scraping it up, turn your heat down or remove the pan from the burner to scrape and then return it to the heating element to continue. When you achieve a warm light brown color, remove from the burner and set aside to cool. Done! (I suggest bulk toasting and saving extra toasted milk powder in your pantry for other recipes like chocolate chip cookies or snickerdoodle cookies) Once your toasted milk powder is made, mix in 1tbsp (10g) per 4oz (113.5g) of melted white chocolate with an immersion or tabletop blender. Pour this mixture into molds to make the cookie cores.

To be clear: This is not tempering, just toasting. I didn’t see the point in tempering chocolate for this recipe because it isn’t going to be seen. But, if you wanted to temper the chocolate, you would let it cool on the silpat, re-chop it, and heat 3/4 of it to 108°F (42°C) over a double boiler. For that, add about 1in (2.5cm) depth of water to a sauce pan and place a heat safe bowl over the top of the pan. Turn the burner to medium/med-low so the water begins to simmer (NOT boil) and heat the bowl. Add the chocolate to the bowl and begin stirring with a spatula when it begins to melt. Do not stop stirring!

Next, add the remaining chocolate a little at a time, stirring until the temperature comes down to between 82-86°F (28-30°C). This is called seeding. You’ll need to keep the chocolate within this range for the entire duration of your work or you will have to start over. Reheat with your double boiler and spatula a few seconds at a time. Be careful not to let it get too hot!

You can test your temper by putting a knife tip into the chocolate and leaving it out harden. It should be fully hard within 5 minutes and have a glossy finish. If not, let cool and repeat the process all over. Properly tempered chocolate will also snap in half and not bend when broken.

Not at all! If all of this molding and melting and everything seems like a lot, just chop up the blonde chocolate into pieces and add it to the dough when you add in the butterscotch morsels and oats. Still delicious!

Or, leave the blonde chocolate out entirely and double the butterscotch morsels for a more traditional scotchie.

If you want larger cookies I suggest a #24, 2in (5cm) cookie scoop (it should hold roughly 2.5tbsp or 50g of dough). Keep in mind, there will be less filling-to-cookie ratio unless you also increase the candy mold size, meaning you can half the amount of blonde chocolate for the bigger cookies. The larger scoop should yield about 24 cookies. Bake the large scooped cookies for 15-16 minutes at the same temperature.

Guess what else I found out while baking these! If you almost fully harden the brown butter and cut or scoop it into small pieces, you can use it to cream the butter and sugar at the start, the same way you would use regular butter. Then add the eggs one at a time and then your flour mixture, like traditional cookies! Fair warning: I only did this once, so it’s a working theory and it may not work with other cookies, but It’s on my list of food experiments for the future. Super cool huh?!
If you too walk on the wild side and want to try making this recipe or other brown butter cookies this way, let me know how it goes!