Best Salted Caramel Shortbread Cookies Recipes

SALTED CARAMEL SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Steps:

• Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat 1 1/2 cups butter with electric mixer on high speed until creamy. Beat in sugar and vanilla. On low speed, beat in flour until blended.
• Divide dough in half. Between 2 sheets of waxed paper, roll 1 portion of dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter. On ungreased cookie sheet, place cutouts about 2 inches apart. Repeat with second portion of dough.
• Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until set and just barely light golden (do not overbake). Remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks; cool completely.
• In medium microwavable bowl, microwave caramels and milk uncovered on High 2 minutes 30 seconds, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth. Frost each cookie with about 1 rounded teaspoon caramel mixture.
• In small microwavable bowl, melt chocolate and 1 tablespoon butter uncovered on High 1 minute 30 seconds, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth. Drizzle chocolate over caramel on each cookie. Sprinkle generously with salt. Let stand until set.

SALTED CARAMEL SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Pour the milk into a pie plate, stir in 1/4 teaspooon kosher salt, and cover it tightly with foil. Put the pie plate in a big roasting pan, and fill the pan halfway up the pie plate with hot water. Bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours, adding more water if necessary. Let cool, then whisk until smooth. Meanwhile, make the cookies.Set the oven at 350 degrees. The butter has to be room temp for this to work well, so what I did was set the butter out first thing in the morning, make the caramel, then about 15 minutes before that was done, I made the cookies. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixer. Add the vanilla. Mix the salt with the flour, then add the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until the dough comes together. I formed the dough into square logs (though you can make it into a plate shape and roll it out; I just hate doing cut-out cookies). Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes. Slice or cut the dough into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick cookies (mine were like 1/3 an inch). They don't spread much, so you can get quite a few on an ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with reserved sugar. Bake for 20-24 minutes, switching the cookie sheets halfway through to get even cooking. Keep an eye on them because they go from perfect to burned fast. Put wax paper under your cooling rack. Remove cookies from the oven, place on the cooling racks. Heat the caramel for 30 seconds in the microwave, then put it in a Ziploc bag and snip one end (to make a homemade pastry bag). Drizzle cookies with caramel, then sprinkle with kosher salt.