You're Just 2 Ingredients Away From Making A Starbucks-Inspired Salted Brown Butter Cookie Topping

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Like many Starbucks seasonal beverages, its group of pistachio-flavored drinks snatch their share of java-fan devotion. Enticing winter customers out on chilly January days, the lineup currently includes the popular pistachio cream cold brew and the pistachio latte that's available hot, iced, or in a Frappuccino rendition. What they all have in common, regardless of other preparations, is a scattering of salty, buttery-flavored crumbles across the foamy top layer.

The Starbucks ingredient list officially calls those crumbles a "salted brown butter cookie flavored topping." That packs a lot of intrigue, with expectations of old-fashioned butter cookies and salty browned butter, finely crushed and scattered with aplomb by in-the-know baristas. Your culinary brain starts buzzing: Could you make that in your own kitchen? The answer is an absolute yes, but you won't be using the same ingredients as Starbucks. That's because the key word in the Starbucks topping description is "flavored." There aren't any actual cookies or any brown butter in those tasty, sweet sprinkles — just flavorings that simulate the taste. 

The good news, however, is that you can take things up quite a few notches when making your own topping at home. You only need the most obvious two ingredients to mimic, and positively transform, the Starbucks version. And they're the real deal: homemade browned butter and genuine butter cookies. 

First, let's clarify what's in the Starbucks "salted brown butter cookie flavored topping," as noted in the published ingredient list. It contains sugar, powdered sugar, cornstarch, sea salt, fruit and vegetable color from pumpkin, sugar beets, apple, carrot and hibiscus, natural flavors, and salt. To the company's credit, the colors come from Mother Nature rather than from artificial dyes, and there's no mention of dubious fillers or preservatives.   

But you can do much better in your own version, starting with browned salted butter. If already know how to make brown butter, proceed using your favorite method. Otherwise, it's an easy procedure, as long as you stay engaged while the butter browns into a nutty, toasty, caramel-like flavor. Start by melting about four tablespoons of room-temperature salted butter on medium heat in a standard stovetop frying pan, preferably a light-colored one to better gauge when the butter is starting to brown. Stir gently and constantly as the butter starts to bubble and foam. In 10 minutes or less, you'll get a rich, earthy, light-brown coloration, and the milk solids will gently sizzle and toast in the pan's bottom. Remove quickly before it burns!

Now all that's left for creating your own version of the Starbucks salted brown butter cookie topping is to stir some finely crushed butter cookies into the browned butter. These can be homemade butter cookies or packaged ones, including favorites such as Kjeldsens Danish Butter Cookies or various butter cookies from Pepperidge Farms.