This website may contain affiliate links and advertising so that we can provide recipes to you. Read my disclosure policy.
Delicious chewy sugar cookie bars made with brown butter. This adds such amazing flavor and the salted caramel buttercream on top is the best part! 
I love sugar cookie bars. They require little effort to make and taste just as amazing with a fraction of the work. Brown butter is also another favorite of mine. Have you made anything yet with brown butter in it? If you haven’t, then you are missing out!
How do you even describe brown butter? It becomes nutty and adds such great flavor with just a simple added step of cooking it on the stove. It is like a bakers gold. Whatever you add it to becomes amazing! It made these sugar cookie bars so soft and chewy and were literally the best that I have ever had!
But just when you think these delicious bars can’t get any better, you frost them with salted caramel buttercream. Oh my goodness. I think I am going to frost everything from now on with this frosting! The frosting took these delicious bars to a whole different and amazing level. Sprinkle it with a little sea salt and you are good to devour. 🙂
I have made some sugar cookie bars in my day that have been dry and crumbly before. Not these. They are so soft and chewy with the first bite! They even stay soft and chewy the next day. If they last that long! 🙂
I know that you will agree that these are one of the best cookie bars ever! And if you have never added brown butter to anything, now is the time to start!
Recipe frosting source Betty Crocker
Pin this now to find it later
Pin It
Brown Butter Sugar Cookie Bars with Salted Caramel Buttercream
Ingredients
For the Brown Butter Sugar Cookie Bars:
- 13 tablespoons unsalted butter melted until browned
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the Salted Caramel Butter Cream:
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1/4 cup milk
- 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- Course Sea Salt for Sprinkling
Instructions
To make the sugar cookie bars:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9x13 inch pan with aluminum foil and lightly spray with cooking spray.
- In a medium sized saucepan add the butter. Cook over medium heat and whisk the butter to brown. It will become frothy and start to have a nutty aroma. Then it will turn brown. It takes about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine dark brown sugar, sugar, vanilla, brown butter and eggs. Beat until incorporated.
- Add flour and salt and mix until just combined. Do not over mix. The dough will be thick. Spread evenly into the bottom of your prepared 9x13 inch baking pan. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until the edges are lightly brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack completely.
To make the salted caramel buttercream:
- In a medium sauce pan add the butter and brown sugar. Bring to a boil. Stir in the milk and bring back to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in powdered sugar. Frost the cooled bars ad sprinkle lightly with sea salt.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Very easy to make and definitely delicious! I used dark brown sugar for the icing (packed) and I only used 1/3 c of white sugar in the bars since it had enough sugar overall. I used one of the suggestions to ice the cookie bars while still hot so the icing stays on them. I used about half of the icing and then I just put the rest in my freezer. Overall, very good recipe and the best bars I’ve ever made!
Do you store these in the fridge or on the counter?
I have made these at least a dozen times. Theses bars are one of my favorite recipes when I need a delicious dessert in a pinch. They are quick, easy, everyone loves them & I always have all the ingredients on hand. One thing I do is spread the icing on when the bars are still warm & still in the pan. Since they are in the pan, it melts, spreads on easily & then firms back up. They are perfect and ready to eat or slice in a few hours. Thank you for the awesome recipe!
I’ve had this recipe pinned for a while and finally got around to making them today. I should never try baking on a busy day – I was in such a rush I completely missed adding the granulated sugar. Could be why the bars turned out a bit hard – to cut and chew. I also had the same problem with the frosting as Robin (commentor above) where the frosting turned into a hard mass that I couldn’t even spread. What I did with that was scrape off what had glued itself to the bars and put it back in the saucepan, added maybe another cup of powdered sugar (or icing sugar as we call it here in Canada lol) and enough hot water to thin it out. I was still left with chunks in the frosting so I put it on low heat on the stove and it remelted. That seemed to be the fix, it poured and spread nicely after that. I did take into consideration that a number of commentors mentioned the frosting was too much so I only made a half batch and it was just right
I made these bar cookies for a memorial service at our church. On Sunday morning everyone was coming up to me to praise my maple cookies ? But now they are requested specifically for any church event! Thank you for this amazing recipe!
I made these last night but my frosting is not sticking to the butter sugar cookie. As soon as I start cutting the icing breaks right off. Is there something I can do to fix it? It all tastes good, together, if only I could get them to stay together. Any ideas are much appreciated.
Loved this recipe! I added a little less sugar so it was less sweet. I’ll definitely be making this icing again! It was delicious.
These are good, but extremely sweet, and after reading the comments , I only made half of the frosting recipe and used most of it. They were still very sweet!
Made these to add to my Christmas recipes. Every family member said they were the best recipe! They are very rich so I cut them 1 inch by 1 inch. Perfect! My frosting turned out a little hard and I only had light brown sugar. Still they were unbelievably awesome. Thank you for this recipe.
Your little stars don’t work or I’d give you a ten!