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1
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
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2
Place butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. After the butter melts, continue cooking for 5 minutes or so, stirring frequently. It may foam up, which is fine. Watch carefully, as your goal is to see the milk solids and salt in the butter begin to turn brown, but you don't want to have them burn. When the butter is a light tan/golden color and begins to smell toasty, immediately remove pan from heat and set it aside.
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3
Allow the browned butter to cool slightly, then stir in the vanilla, the spices, and the espresso powder if using. Get as creative as you like in terms of add-in flavors, but the key is to add them to the warm brown butter so they get an extra boost in the cookies.
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4
Stir in the brown sugar, granulated sugar and salt with a wooden spoon or a spatula, then stir in the flour. The mixture will start off smooth but become drier and almost crumbly as you stir and the butter cools.
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5
If you want your brittle to be shaped like biscotti, divide cookie mixture into two equal portions on your prepared baking sheet. Using your hands, form the dough into two long rectangles, each about 6 inches across, and press down with your fingers to a thickness of about 1/3 of an inch.
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6
Otherwise, you can press out all of the dough into one large rectangle on the baking sheet, and press away. It may not fill up the entire sheet but that's fine!
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7
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown in the center and slightly darker on the edges.
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8
If you are forming biscotti shapes, immediately cut through the long rectangles with a sharp knife, at about 1 inch intervals. The cookies will harden quickly as they cool, making cutting difficult. So you want to do this while they are fresh out of the oven. Otherwise, allow to cool completely, and break up into tasty pieces by hand.
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9
Cookies will keep for a week, stored in an airtight container.
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10
This is based on a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle originally from Nestle. I've swapped in brown butter, taken out the chocolate chips and nuts, and added all the great spices of fall, plus pepper and a hint of coffee. Because, well, I'm a grown-up now.
