I’d been craving cookies all week. It happens from time to time, and the craving doesn’t pass until it is satiated, so it was only a matter of time until I gave in. I’m pretty basic with my cookie tastes. Give me a homemade chocolate chip cookie made to spec with the recipe printed on the back of a package of Nestle Morsels, and I’m a happy girl. When you’ve got a baking blog, though, people expect you to branch out. Sometimes I wander through the baking aisle at the store looking for something to catch my eye for inspiration. This last particular trip, I was perusing the baking chips selection at Target, and down on the lowest shelf, off to the right like an afterthought, was a bag of caramel bits. Not the individually wrapped square caramels! No, these were round, chip-size dots of caramel that I could pour out of the package and into my batter. Caramel? Chocolate? Let’s go.
I know I didn’t branch out too far with these salted caramel chocolate chip cookies, but this is also not your back-of-the-bag basic recipe. So…why would you need a different recipe if all you’re really doing is adding in caramel bits and sprinkling some sea salt on top?
Here’s the thing: when you bake those cookies using the recipe printed on the back of the package, they are optimized for that product. If you want to use milk chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet, it’s a bit different of a balance. I once tried to make M&M chocolate chip cookies by just substituting M&M’s for chocolate chips in the Nestle bag recipe, and I ended up with M&M’s in flat puddles of over-baked dough. This Christmas, though, I tried a different recipe with tons of success, because it was designed to support the difference in texture and weight of the added mix-ins.
Another thing I love about cookies is the ease with which the dough comes together. I can manage to get the dough together before my little destructor pulls everything out of the kitchen cupboards. When I mixed up the dough, I actually rethought the amount of chips I added to the batter than what is pictured above. I measured out 8 oz. of each, but I went back and measured one cup of each in a measuring cup.
This recipe requires some chill time in the fridge–two hours, to be exact. It seems like a long time, but I love being able to mix cookies up, scoop them into portions, and bake them later. You can also freeze them at this point and only make the amount of cookies you want and have the ability to have fresh cookies anytime!
Bonus–you can take that classic cookie dough photo for your instagram! 😉
Right before you bake, dip each of the dough balls lightly into course sea salt. I used a pink Himalayan salt, because it has a mild flavor. You can use Kosher salt if you’ve got nothing else, but avoid table salt. Also, a little salt goes a long way, but man, that hit of salt with all that sweet is absolutely heavenly!
These cookies were totally addicting. I had no idea how much I needed caramel bits in my life until I baked these cookies. If you can’t find them, you could take regular wrapped caramels and cut them into smaller cubes. That seems like a lot of work, though! I’m not afraid of a work intensive recipe, but that’s not what anyone wants in a cookie recipe, amiright?
My one complaint about this recipe is that it didn’t make near enough cookies. I had both chocolate chips and caramel bits left over afterwards, and just not enough cookies. Useful for my photos, but impractical for anyone else. I’m going to end up scaling this recipe up to use a full bag each of chips and caramel bits. Maybe then a batch of these cookies will last us more than two days and we can avoid this awkward exchange:
Husband: Can I have another cookie?
Me: *slowly, wordlessly, and with tons of guilt, hands him the rest of the cookie I was eating*
Husband: Seriously?
The struggle is real, my friends!
Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies
Basic Chocolate Chip cookies get a facelift with the addition of caramel bits and finished with a sprinkle of sea salt! Recipe sourced from Baked By an Introvert
Ingredients
- 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp Salt, fine
- 1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, softened
- 1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 Large Egg + 1 Large Egg Yolk
- 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips
- 1 cup Caramel Bits
- 1-2 Tbsp Coarse Sea Salt
Directions
- Step 1 In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and fine salt. Whisk to blend, and set aside
- Step 2 Cream butter and both sugars together in a large bowl. Beat in vanilla, the full egg, and the egg yolk
- Step 3 Add flour mixture in three parts until each addition is fully incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips and caramel bits
- Step 4 Scoop or portion cookie dough into 1.5-2 Tbsp sized balls on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat. Cover and chill for 2 hours
- Step 5 Preheat the oven to 350F. While oven is heating, gently press the top of each ball of dough into the sea salt. Arrange cookies 2-inches apart on a clean baking sheet lined with parchment and bake for 10-12 minutes per tray until lightly brown
- Step 6 Cool cookies on the pan for 10 minutes until the caramel is set and cookies are firm. Remove and cool completely on a wire rack
*Dough can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to 3 days. Allow dough 30 minutes out of the refrigerator before baking
**Freeze unbaked cookie dough balls for up to 3 months. Bring to room temperature and bake as directed
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