Norwegian Brown Cheese + White Chocolate Cookies

Probably one of the most beloved Norwegian foods is our brunost, or brown cheese. Norwegians love to eat this sweet, fudgy cheese on top of bread or waffles, and we also use it for added flavor in stews and sauces. And brown cheese also happens to be delicious in white chocolate chip cookies!

This is a classic white chocolate chip (or chunk) cookie recipe with the addition of small cubes of brunost. You can buy Norwegian brown cheese on Amazon here.

While not technically a cheese brunost is made from leftover whey from the cheesemaking process. The whey is boiled down until it caramelizes. In Norway you can buy brown cheese made both from cow’s milk and from goat’s milk, with slightly varying flavors. Some supermarkets abroad carry brown cheese as well, otherwise you can order it online.

You can also make these cookies with semi sweet or milk chocolate, however I think the brown cheese tastes best paired with the simple sweetness of white chocolate. Since white chocolate chips aren’t commonly sold in Norway, I make these cookies with chopped white chocolate chunks instead of white chocolate chips.

Tips

Be sure to use room temperature, softened butter when making the cookie dough, otherwise the cookies may flatten too much while baking.

Cut the brown cheese into small cubes about the size of your white chocolate chips or chopped chocolate. You can cut the brunost into larger cubes for a stronger brown cheese flavor, or smaller cubes for a more subtle brown cheese taste. You can always add more or less brown cheese, depending on how much you would like in the cookies.

I like to make fairly large cookies, about the size of a heaping tablespoon of cookie dough. Be sure to space the cookies out well on your baking sheet, as they spread out quite a bit during baking.

Be sure not to bake these cookies for too long. Take them out of the oven as soon as the edges turn golden brown. The centers will still look slightly under baked, but they will firm up as the cookies cool. This keeps the centers of the cookies nice and soft while the edges are crispy.

Let the cookies cool for a couple of minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire wrack to cool completely.

You can store these cookies in the freezer if you won’t be eating them immediately.

You can switch the recipe from US measurements to metric by clicking from “US Customary” to “Metric” under Ingredients.