These Gooey Salted Caramel Vanilla Butter Cookies are to die for. The vanilla butter cookie is decadently soft and buttery, so it melts in your mouth! Luxurious pools of gooey salted caramel join in to send this delicious dessert over the top!
I’m so excited to share these incredible cookies with you today! They are outrageously delicious.
They are super gorgeous and impressive so they are perfect for any cookie swaps you my have coming up!
Here’s all you need to make them. Brown sugar, a little heavy whipping cream, vanilla, butter, flour, eggs, and sugar.
The cookie part calls for 2/3 cup butter, which seems like a weird amount, but it’s usually labeled right there on the butter for you. Just use two 1/3 cups. It’s about 11 tablespoons.
Mix the butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 egg yolks, and a teaspoon of vanilla on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the flour and beat on low speed until well combined. Shape dough into 1.5″ balls and place onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Now you will need to make an indentation in the dough for your salted caramel sauce. You can use your thumb or the end of a wooden spoon handle.
Tips for Making The Best Vanilla Butter Cookies
I used a wooden pestle dipped in flour, because the dough is kind of sticky. Now these cookies are so buttery that they tend to spread a lot, so you will need to chill the dough before baking. I recommend chilling overnight. They need to be really cold and firm! You could also stick them in the freezer for 30-60 minutes. The great thing about these cookies is that you can chill in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 72 hours! You can also freeze them and bake them straight from the freezer. So you can do all the hard work one day, and then just get up the next day and bake. Easy! When you’re ready to bake, bake at 375 for 8-10 mins
While the cookies are baking, it’s time to make the salted caramel sauce! Melt the butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture begins to bubble. Continue cooking and stirring for one minute. Remove from heat. Slowly whisk in whipping cream until smooth. Cool for about 15 minutes.
When the cookies come out of the oven, you may need to press them down again slightly in the center to make a good shallow pool for the sauce.
Let the cookies cool completely, then spoon about 1 teaspoon of caramel sauce into center of each cookie. Let the caramel set about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt, like kosher salt or Fleur De Sel.
They are SO addictive!! Enjoy, fellow butter lovers!! Hope you love these cookies as much as we do!! :) xoxo
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Gooey Salted Caramel Vanilla Butter Cookies
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Prep Time: 15 minutes -
Cook Time: 10 minutes
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Total Time: 25 minutes
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Yield: 12-14 cookies 1x
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Category: Dessert
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Method: Oven
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Cuisine: American
Prep Time:
Yield:
Category:
Method:
Cuisine:Description
These Gooey Salted Caramel Vanilla Butter Cookies are to die for. The vanilla butter cookie is decadently soft and buttery, so it melts in your mouth! Luxurious pools of gooey salted caramel join in to send this delicious dessert over the top!
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Salted Caramel
- 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup butter
- 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
- Kosher salt or Fleur De Sel
Instructions
- Add 2/3 cup butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla to a mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until light and fluffy. Add flour and beat on low speed until well combined. Shape dough into 1.5-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Make an indentation in center of each cookie with thumb or end of wooden spoon handle. Refrigerate at least 1 hour until firm or up to 72 hours.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake cookies directly from refrigerator for 8-10 minutes. When the cookies come out of the oven, you may need to press them down again slightly in the center to make a good shallow pool for the sauce. Cool completely.
- Meanwhile, make the salted caramel sauce. Melt the remaining 1/4 cup butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture begins to bubble. Continue cooking and stirring for one minute. Remove from heat. Slowly whisk in whipping cream until smooth. Cool for about 15 minutes.
- Spoon about 1 teaspoon of caramel sauce into center of each cookie. Let the caramel set about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt, like kosher salt or Fleur De Sel.
Ohmygoodness! These are delicious! Definitely a hit with the family. Thank you for the lovely recipe.
Don’t you have any recipe on making ginger biscuit cookies?My kids love to eat them.
This looked delicious and tried making it twice.It was successful in the second go.My kids liked them a lot.I took some of them to the office and shared with my colleagues during tea time.They also liked butter tea cookies.Thank you for publishing.
Amanda they do look delicious! I bought a salted Carmel sauce in the ice cream topping aisle do you hint I can use that? It is yummy I put it on ice cream!?
I made these for Thanksgiving and they were a huge hit. My oldest couldn’t control himself at all.
I made 2 batches. For the 1st one I slowly added the flour and completely beat it in before adding more. These were soooo light and fluffy. Was in more of a hurry for the 2nd batch and dumped the flour in at once. They were still good but were much denser. Thinking of trying chocolate and some fruit flavors in the middle as well as the salted caramel for Christmas. Thanks so much for the recipe!!
Is the butter in the recipe salted or unsalted? Looking forward to making these!
Just made these and they are excellent. The cookie is a little crumbly but I was lazy with measurements. Definitely doing these again! Will probably make traditional caramel next time with water since this way is yummy but grainy…
These look UH-mazing!! I’m a huge fan of making stuff ahead. Do you think they would freeze week??
Thanks for the recipe! Just made these, they taste amazing. Just wondering how you store them, room temp or in the fridge since it has cream in it. Thanks
They can be stored at room temperature. Enjoy! :)
I made these and they taste nice although I think that the biscuit to caramel ratio needs refining. More filling please.
Yes it does and I should have known. I’m such a huge Pottery Barn fan. Thank you for responding.
Amanda, I love your table. I’m going to be in the market for a new table soon and this is exactly what I’m looking for. Do you mind saying where you found it? thanks.
Hi Rosemary! It’s the Benchwright Extending Pedestal Dining Table from Pottery Barn. Hope this helps! :)
Is the dough supposed to be crumby…
Mam, I have an OTG with 300 degrees and your recipe demands 375 if i buy a halogen oven can i make these in them as i am planning to buy it please let me know as the look very tempting and wish to bake them
Try drizzling melted chocolate over them. It will taste like a Twix candy bar. Everything is better with chocolate! Thanks for the great recipe.
Hi I live in Australia Queensland just want to know what is heavy whipping cream.Thanks.
OMG! I made these cookies for Christmas and they are to die for! The caramel filling is where it is at. I’m a bit ashamed to stay that I ate it by the spoonful….a lot of it…
I made these cookies twice, the first time by following your directions – and the second by using a chocolate dough for the cookie portion. Both versions are amazing.
Thanks for such a great recipe!!
Don’t need help. Put dough in fridge. For a spell and used a small ice cream scoop to shape cookies alls well at my house. I we’ll make these again thank you for your time and the great reciept
Sincerely yours. Jean Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you and yours
My dough is still very wet should I add more flour thank you
bridgett- I just made these today for a cookie exchange..needed 4 dozen plus so I quadrupled this and have close to 100 cookies now so I’d say 24 cookies is more accurate.
I followed this to the very last detail and mine are very fluffy/cake like. I anticipated more of a crumbly butter cookie texture. Don’t know if this is normal of it maybe I overworked the dough. Would love anyone else’s feedback/tweaks that have tried this. Thanks!
Does the caramel set up enough for these cookies to be stacked one on top of the other on a cookie tray??? And is the yield of 12-14 accurate? I’m thinking of making this for a cookie exchange.
I made these cookies and they were amazing! Thank you so much for the recipe. My favorite part was the caramel filling – I didn’t realize caramel was so simple to make. I’m definitely going to make that filling again and sneak it into other desserts this holiday!
hi these sound gorgeous but have you got a British version please??? Or a conversion chart(including gas number for oven ) thanks only looked at some conversions and they differ slightly. Thanks x
Do you have to use the whipping cream?
I love these!! That salted caramel has me drooling!
Holy cow! Those look amazing!!!
These look so delicious, I have to make a batch very soon!!!
I’m so into this, and I will tell you why. Salty caramel is ALWAYS paired with chocolate, but it’s so good with vanilla too!! I love these simple and sweet cookies. :-)
Love!!!
These look divine! Pinned and putting it on my holiday bake list!
Those look heavenly! I’ll have to make them since they seem super easy and don’t require any out of the ordinary ingredients! Thanks for sharing!
I saw you on The Chew yesterday!!!! with the Pillsbury dough boy as you were having a pic taken!!! Did you know you were on? so cute!
also ordered some of that salt you talked about with the chocolate caramel pie…..YUM!! ordering a bigger container…..
What a beautiful cookie! This recipe gets me in the mood to bake Christmas cookies!
These look so good! Plus I made a whole bunch of caramel sauce just before Thanksgiving (I was stalling, knowing I had to figure out how to cook a 47# turkey!).
these look incredible! love that little pool of caramel!
Perfection! I’ve never been a fan of “thumbprint” cookies, because they’re filled with some type of fruit filling…so this is such a nice alteration!! :)
Oh my goodness I realllllly want some of these today! gorgeous!!
These sound wonderful! I think I’ll make them for my upcoming cookie swap. How do you think they’ll fair in the mail???
These look amazing! I am going to add these to my 12 days of Christmas cookies baking list!
Thanks for sharing!
Wow, these look incredible! I can’t wait to try them out.
These look like a sure winner! Your Secret Ingredient Christmas Cookies were a big hit with my family last year–that was the best new Christmas cookie recipe I had tried in at least a decade. These are definitely going to make it onto this year’s roster. I’ve already made a double batch of the former to share with my extended family on Thanksgiving, and they got raves. I know these will, too.
I love sharing cookies with extended family! And trying new recipes. It’s so fun when everyone brings a new recipe and then you make all these different cookies together and snack snack snack! Yum.