Enjoy rich buttery caramel flavor in every bite of these salted caramel cookies. Each chewy caramel-flavored cookie is drizzled with caramel sauce and sprinkled with salt flakes. There's caramel sauce in the cookie dough too.
I spent days experimenting with this recipe and finally found the best salted caramel cookie recipe! I am so excited to share these cookies with you. They are amazingly good.
Many of my failed cookies tasted more like chocolate-chip cookies without the chips. They had a delicious flavor but I wanted my cookies to really taste like caramel so I knew I needed to ramp up the caramel flavor.
To do so, I started by adding caramel sauce to the cookie dough and on top of the cookies. That recipe made delicious cookies but I still wasn't happy with the caramel flavor. They needed something more, so I added a special ingredient that took these cookies over-the-top.
How to get more caramel flavor in your cookies?
Add a splash of caramel flavoring to really enhance the caramel flavor in these cookies.
I used LorAnn Caramel Bakery Emulsion to flavor my cookies. This thick, syrup-like flavoring was the trick to perfectly flavored caramel cookies. I highly recommend investing in a bottle of this liquid gold. I couldn't believe the difference it made in the flavor of these caramel cookies.
There are other caramel flavorings on the market that might work too. I just haven't tried them yet.
Ingredients
butter - Use softened unsalted butter. To quickly soften the butter, cut it into small pieces and place them in your mixing bowl. In about 20 minutes, your butter will be ready.
brown and granulated sugar - A combination of both brown and white sugar will enhance the caramel flavor of your cookies. Use dark brown sugar if you have it, otherwise light will work fine.
caramel sauce - I made homemade caramel sauce (see my recipe below) but you can use any thick store-bought caramel sauce. I don't recommend thin ice cream topping as it will drip off the tops of your cookies.
caramel flavoring - I recommend using LorAnn Caramel Bakery Emulsion. It has a wonderful flavor that will not evaporate as your cookies bake.
vanilla extract - Round out the flavor by adding a splash of pure vanilla extract.
flour - Use all-purpose flour. It's always best to weigh your flour. We use 128 grams of flour per cup, so you'll need 288 grams for this cookie recipe. If you measure using cups, spoon the flour into your measuring cup, then scrape the excess off the top. You'll use 2 ¼ cups of flour to make this salted caramel cookie dough.
baking soda and baking powder - With the addition of the thick caramel sauce to this recipe, it's important to give your cookies enough lift.
salt - You'll be adding more salt to the top of these cookies, but the cookie dough needs a bit of salt too in order to balance out the sweetness of the sugars and caramel sauce.
How to make easy caramel sauce?
Choose your caramel. I love using Peter's Caramel. It has a great flavor and texture. It's creamy and smooth not gritty or dry. Werther's caramels are another great option. No matter what caramel you use, cut it into small pieces so it melts more evenly.
Melt the caramel with some water. Pour the water into a small saucepan and add the caramel. Set the pan over medium-low heat. Allow the caramel to melt, stirring it constantly once it begins to melt.
Then, stir in heavy whipping cream. It will bubble up. Stir until it's smooth and creamy.
To make 1 cup of caramel sauce, use:
- 1 tablespoon water
- 8 ounces caramel
- ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
You'll need about ¼ cup of caramel sauce (to mix into the dough) plus ⅓ cup (to drizzle over top) for this salted caramel cookie recipe. You'll have some extra sauce to enjoy over ice cream, cheesecake, or coffee.
Make the dough.
You'll make this cookie dough the way you make chocolate chip cookie dough by creaming the butter and sugars together.
Then, you'll mix in the egg and flavorings (vanilla and caramel) before adding the caramel sauce.
Once you've blended your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) together, you'll mix them into the wet ingredients just until the dough comes together.
This dough is easy enough to make by hand but you can also use a hand-held mixer or a stand mixer.
Bake cookies then top them with salted caramel.
Scoop the cookies out by the tablespoonful. I like using a mini ice cream scoop to make even-sized cookies.
Do not roll or flatten the cookies. If you roll the caramel cookie dough into balls, your baked cookies won't have those wonderful cracks on top. The cookies will flatten naturally as they bake but they should not be too flat. If they flatten too much, you may not have measured the flour properly or your butter may have gotten too warm. Add a bit more flour and chill the dough for 30 minutes.
Top the cookies with caramel sauce. You can see the need for a thick caramel sauce here. If your sauce is too thin it will drip off the cookie.
Sprinkle on salt. I like to use salt flakes because they look really pretty on my salted caramel cookies, but you can use Kosher salt too. Do not use table salt. It's too fine to show up and your cookies will taste too salty.
salted caramel cookies
These are the best salted caramel cookies you can bake. They have an amazingly rich buttery caramel flavor enhanced by adding caramel sauce and caramel flavoring to the cookie dough.
Ingredients
- SALTED CARAMEL COOKIE DOUGH
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- ¾ cups (156 grams) brown sugar (I use dark for extra flavor)
- ½ tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon LorAnn Caramel Bakery Emulsion (see notes)
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup thick caramel sauce
- 288 grams (2 ¼ cups) all purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoons baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- TOPPINGS
- ⅓ cup thick caramel sauce
- salt flakes
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177° C).
- Line 4 baking trays with parchment paper.
- Cut the butter into small pieces and place in a mixing bowl.
- Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar and beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the egg, vanilla, and caramel flavoring.
- Then, add the caramel sauce, and beat until incorporated.
- Blend the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together, then stir them into the butter mixture just until the cookie dough comes together.
- Scoop the cookie dough out by the tablespoonful using a small cookie scoop.
- Place the cookie scoops onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
- DO NOT ROLL THE COOKIES! If you do, your cookies will be smooth without the cool-looking cracks on top.
- Bake one tray of cookies at a time for about 12 minutes until the edges set and the tops of the cookies no longer look wet.
- Remove and set the tray on a cooling rack.
- Allow the cookies to cool completely.
- Then, drizzle caramel sauce over the cookies and sprinkle with salt flakes.
Notes
Caramel Flavoring:
I recommend you use LorAnn Caramel Bakery Emulsion to make these salted caramel cookies. You may also use caramel coffee flavoring or caramel extract but the caramel flavor won't be as pronounced in your cookies.
Caramel Sauce:
To make the homemade caramel sauce, melt 8 ounces of caramel, like Peter's Caramel or Werther's Caramels, with 1 tablespoon of water in a small saucepan set over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Once melted, stir in ¼ cup of heavy whipping cream. Pour into a glass jar and let cool for at least 3 hours.
This will make 1 cup of caramel sauce. You will use ¼ cup of caramel sauce in the caramel cookie dough and about ⅓ cup to drizzle over the cookies. Use the remaining sauce to drizzle over ice cream, cheesecake, or more cookies!
The caramel sauce will not harden on top of these cookies. If you need to stack the cookies in a package, you can just use melted caramel. Slowly melt caramel pieces in a saucepan over low heat (do not add water or cream). Then, drizzle that caramel over the cookies. This caramel topping will be chewy (not soft) and will harden so you can stack the cookies. Do not overheat the caramel or it will turn to hard candy once cooled.
Measuring flour:
It's always best to weigh flour using a kitchen scale but if you don't have a scale, spoon the flour into your measuring cup, then scrape the excess off the top edge using a knife. We measure 128 grams of flour per cup.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
48Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 92Total Fat: 3gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 9mgSodium: 83mgCarbohydrates: 15gFiber: 0gSugar: 8gProtein: 1g
HowToMakeEasyCookies.com offers nutritional information for recipes contained on this site as a courtesy and is an estimate only. This information comes from online calculators. To obtain the most accurate representation of the nutritional information in any given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients you use to create this recipe.
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Did you make this recipe and think it was great or do have any questions? Leave a comment below and rate the recipe using stars (5 stars means you love it!)
Lori
The cookies have great flavor. I followed recipe exact even weighed the flour and sugars. I was expecting them a little thicker. next time, I will add a little more flour next time.
Beth Klosterboer
I'm glad you enjoyed the flavor. They are relatively thin cookies. If you want thicker cookies, you can chill the dough for a few hours before baking.