Salted Caramel Cookies

What Are Salted Caramel Cookies?

Everything about these salted caramel cookies is absolutely irresistible. We’re talking about milk chocolate, gooey caramel, and chewy brown sugar cookies wrapped into one delicious morsel. The drizzle of golden 4-Ingredient Caramel Sauce is totally made from scratch and SO worth it.

This is an explosion of rich and velvety caramel with smooth, melty chocolate. It’s basically heaven for your tastebuds.

The base of these salted caramel cookies is similar to a brown sugar cookie made with browned butter. The result is a deeply rich cookie with multiple levels of flavors. Note that Hershey’s caramel kisses may be available seasonally, so grab them while they’re available. If you can’t find the caramel kisses, you can use ROLO chocolate caramel candies.

How to Make Salted Caramel Cookies

• Use less sugar than you might normally use for cookies. The caramel sauce and chocolate caramel candies are sweet enough that the base cookies don’t need to be overly sweet.
• Use all the vanilla extract in the recipe. One and a half tablespoons might sound like a lot, but it really deepens the flavor profile of the cookies.
• Make homemade caramel sauce. It might be tempting to use store-bought to save time, but homemade caramel sauce tastes a thousand times better. Plus, you only need 4 ingredients for it.
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat silicone baking sheets. Parchment paper or Silpat silicone baking sheets make cookie-baking easy to clean and ensure that cookies don’t burn on the bottom.

Pantry Ingredients for Salted Caramel Cookies

You might already have everything you need to bake these cookies, especially if you love to bake.

• Caramel Sauce: This is the drizzle on top of the cookies; use this homemade, 4-ingredient recipe.
• Salted Butter: Browned butter makes these cookies extra rich with a nuanced flavor profile.
• Light Brown Sugar: This adds to the caramelized flavor of the cookies.
• All-Purpose Flour: To make them gluten-free, use 1 to 1 baking gluten-free flour.
• Baking Powder and Baking Soda: You need both of them to get the soft and chewy texture you love.
• 2 Kinds of Salt: Use extra-fine salt for the cookies and coarse sea salt flakes for sprinkling.
• Egg: This is the emulsifier and keeps all the ingredients for the cookies together.
• Vanilla Extract: Deepens the flavor of cookies, with a rich caramelized depth.
• Caramel Kisses: These are often seasonal; if you can’t find them, use ROLO chocolate caramel candies.
• Flaky Sea Salt: Kosher salt can work, too, for sprinkling.

More to Bake and Eat

• Dark Fudge Brownies with Salted Caramel – these are rich and chewy with the same homemade caramel sauce on top.
• Best Shortbread Cookies – they have a buttery flavor and are dipped in smooth chocolate for even more taste.
• Cookies ‘n Cream Cookies – made with so many delicious ingredients that you can’t pick just one thing you love about them.
• Apple Cookies (With Caramel) – these soft apple cookies contain real apples and plenty of fall spices.

Also Try These Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

Salted Caramel Cookies

5 from 15 ratings

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These salted caramel cookies are chewy, soft, rich with browned butter, and dripping with golden caramel. Flaky sea salt (or kosher salt) gives it that extra flavor boost, creating an extraordinary cookie!

Prep Time: 30 mins

Cook Time: 7 mins

Servings: 40 cookies

Ingredients  

1x2x3x

• 14 TB salted butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
• 2 cups all purpose flour, plus 2 TB extra
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp table salt, fine salt
• 1 large egg , plus 1 egg yolk
• 1 ½ TB vanilla extract
• 40 Caramel Kisses or ROLO candies
• flaky sea salt, kosher salt can work, too for sprinkling
• 1 recipe for homemade caramel sauce

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• In a heavy skillet, heat butter over medium until melted. Constantly swirl or stir the butter until it turns into a lightly golden brown color. Take care to continue swirling/stirring, to prevent burning. Once butter is browned, remove from heat and set aside.
• In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
• Mix brown sugar together with warm browned butter until no lumps remain, about 30 seconds with electric mixer. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla to butter mixture, whisking until smooth.
• Slowly add in flour mixture to the butter mixture on medium-low just until fully incorporated. If dough is sticky, cover tightly in plastic wrap and chill in fridge 30 minutes or more.
• Make dough balls about 1 inch round, and place dough balls on lined baking sheet 2 inches apart. Bake about 7 minutes (do not overbake; cookies will be very soft upon removal, but will set as they cool.)
• Immediately upon removing warm cookies from oven, press a caramel kiss into the center of each. Drizzle with warm caramel sauce.

Equipment

• Silpat Silicone Baking Sheets

Notes

1 1/2 TB vanilla extract may sound like a lot, but the full amount adds so much depth to these cookies. However, if you prefer to bring it down to 1 or 2 tsp, you can do so. 

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Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 128kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 11mg | Sodium: 52mg | Potassium: 10mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 123IU | Calcium: 13mg | Iron: 0.3mg

Course: cookies, Dessert

Cuisine: American, dessert

Diet: Vegetarian

Method: baking