Crispy Salted Caramel Cookies

4.25 from 8 votes

Crispy Salted Caramel Cookies

These crispy salted caramel cookies are crispy and buttery around the edges and filled with a puddle of sweet salted caramel in the middle. The trick to getting salted caramel cookies that are crispy without burning the caramel is to freeze the dough and bake directly from frozen.

Prep Time10

Cook Time10

Freezing Time1

Total Time1 20

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: cookies

Calories: 176kcal

Author: Lauren Skardal

Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened
⅔ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
15 soft caramels
Maldon Sea Salt Flakes

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl add the softened butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar and stir to combine. Add the egg and vanilla and combine. Add the baking soda and salt, stir to combine. Add the flour and stir until incorporated.
Scoop approximately 2 tbsps of dough and shape it into a round ball. Flatten slightly. Shape a caramel into a round disk and place it on top of the cookie dough, pressing slightly.
Place each one onto a piece of wax paper on a flat plate or a small cutting board. Cover in plastic wrap and freeze overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Place the cookies, about 8 at a time on a baking sheet and bake directly from frozen. This allows the edges to get crispy without the caramels getting over-baked.
Bake for 10-11 minutes.
Remove and immediately sprinkle with flaky sea salt.

Notes

For Crispy Cookies:
- The #1 trick for crispy salted caramel cookies is to freeze the dough with the caramels and bake directly from frozen. Freezing the dough makes the cookies crispy and prevents the caramel from getting over-baked, dry, gummy, or brittle.
- For crispier cookies use more granulated sugar and less brown sugar. This recipe calls for ⅔ cup granulated sugar and ¼ cup brown sugar.
- Using only a ¼ tsp baking soda prevents the dough from rising too much so that you get a thinner, crispier cookie
Makes 15 Cookies: This is not a huge batch of cookies, using only ½ cup butter and 1 egg and resulting in 15 cookies. The cookies themselves are a little bigger than a standard drop cookie, and 15 cookies go a long way. Feel free to double this if making it for a crowd.
Use soft caramels: Be sure not to buy the hard suck-on candies, they won't melt.
Maldon Sea Salt Flakes are expensive, but well worth it. A single box can last you over two years. It can be used for all sorts of things like on top of Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cafe Cookies and it's great lightly sprinkled on top of pizza, like our favorite Grandma Pie Pizza.
Freezing the Dough: The dough doesn't have to be frozen overnight, just until it is frozen solid. Really frozen solid. If they are not frozen solid, they will not spread correctly and they will not be crispy. This will take more than a couple of hours. But if you make the dough in the morning, you could easily bake the cookies in the afternoon or evening.

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