Crumbl Copycat Kentucky Butter Cake Cookies from The Semisweet Sisters

Crumbl Copycat Kentucky Butter Cake Cookies - made dough January 13, 2024 from The Semisweet Sisters 

1/2 cup (1 stick) softened salted butter (add 1/4 teaspoon salt if using unsalted)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Glaze

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon water

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

powdered sugar for dusting tops

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until combined. Add egg and vanilla; mix to combine. 
3. Stir in flour and baking powder, mixing on low speed until combined.
4. Portion into 2" dough balls and flatten slightly to thick discs. Evenly space on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake 10-13 minutes or until edges are barely browned and middles are set. Cool completely.
5. Prepare glaze: melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar, water and vanilla, whisking until smooth, melted and combined. Spoon glaze over cooled cookies. Dust with powdered sugar.

If you like unfrosted, potentially unglazed, thick, buttery cookies that are chewy, not crisp, this is the cookie for you, whether you're a Crumbl fan or not. I already have an excellent Crumbl copycat of their Kentucky Butter Cake from Lifestyle of a Foodie that I tried last year when Crumbl had KBC on the menu. They had Kentucky Butter Cake again the week of January 15 so I decided to try another copycat so I could compare it to the original in real time.

You'll notice I didn't glaze these. I was packing them up for my military care packages and didn't want a glaze to add too much moisture to the cookies and potentially have them mold before they got to their destination. So technically these weren't a faithful copycat by my choice. But that didn't matter as these were fabulous cookies in their own right. Flavor-wise, they were quite similar to the Crumbl original. 

Texture-wise, this was freaking spot on. It didn't spread much (otherwise I would've made the dough discs a bit smoother so they would look a little prettier when baked, ha) and had the perfect chewy-soft denseness of a really good buttery cookie.

Of course, I had to get the Crumbl Kentucky Butter Cake so I could do a side by side comparison and taste test; otherwise, what's the point of assessing a copycat recipe? I love Crumbl's KBC and this one was as good as last year's.

Crumbl OG Kentucky Butter Cake

You can see why I love the Crumbl cookie texture so much. Plus the light buttery glaze was a bonus.

Inside pic of Crumbl OG Kentucky Butter Cake

You can also see how closely this copycat recipe mimics Crumbl's cookie texture. Perfection. The only downside to this recipe is it only makes 6 large cookies. Not that that's a big downside as you can always double the recipe or make it multiple times. For my first test run, I only did a single batch and came up with 6 cookies. 5 for the care package, 1 for me. But I'm glad to have another excellent copycat recipe for one of my favorite Crumbl cookies.

top from Semisweet Sisters copycat recipe, bottom is Crumbl's