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Oh my gosh. These cookies are amazing. One of my favorite kind of cookie is a snickerdoodle. It brings back so many memories when I was little helping my mom make them in the kitchen for a Sunday treat. My favorite part was rolling the cookie balls in the cinnamon sugar.
But snickerdoodles with brown butter and a gooey caramel surprise on the inside? Wow.
Have you ever had brown butter? I made a brown butter frosting here, and it was the best thing I have ever had. I couldn’t get enough of it!
These cookies baked perfectly. They were perfectly chewy and the brown butter gave them an amazing flavor. Just when you think they can’t get any better you take your first bite and a gooey caramel surprise is in the inside of the cookie. I also loved how they were lightly salted on the top to give the sweet a little balance of salty. All of this talk is making me want another one. Please excuse me while I go and grab one. 🙂
I know that you guys will love these just as much as we did! And I am not held responsible for any brown butter addictions. 🙂
Brown Butter Salted Caramel Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose Gold Medal flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter sliced
- 1 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt
- 1 cup caramel squares cut into 1/4's
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- Coarse Sea salt for sprinkling on completed cookies
Instructions
- In a medium sized bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, cream of tarter, cinnamon, and set aside.
- To brown the butter, heat a medium saucepan to medium high heat. Add the sliced butter, whisking frequently. You will notice the butter starting to become frothy on the top and brown specks will start to form along the bottom. You have to watch it closely because the turn happens quickly and you don't want it to burn. You will start to smell a nutty aroma and once it turns to a brown color, remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature.
- While the butter is cooling, cut the carmel squares into 1/4's.
- In a stand mixer, combine the brown butter and brown sugar, and ½ cup granulated sugar. (The ¼ cup sugar will be used for rolling in the cookies). Mix until blended and smooth.
- Beat in egg, yolk, vanilla and yogurt and mix until combined. Slowly add the dry ingredients until combined.
- Form the dough into a ball and cover with plastic. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
- Once you are ready to bake preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Measure about 2 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. Flatten the ball and place 1-2 caramel squares inside, wrap the cookie dough over the caramel and roll back into a ball. Make sure it is completely covered so that the caramel won't stick to the pan.
- Mix ¼ cup sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and roll each cookie in the mixture. Place on a cookies on a parchment lined cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt. (I used course sea salt)
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the edges turn lightly brown. The centers will be soft. Allow to cool for 2-3 minutes, and transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Nutrition
Serves: 24
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods and portion sizes per household.
Not a snickerdoodle fan but this is one of my top favorite cookies! SO GOOD!
Is it possible to make this a few days ahead of time or is it best the day of?
These are super tasty! The dark brown sugar alongside the brown butter really helps give it a rich flavor. I didn’t refrigerate my dough for very long so they were quite flat and large, and the caramel mostly stayed right in the middle so it made a little hump (no leakage though, sealing them well when rolling helped prevent that). It ended up working out as one of my guests didn’t like caramel so she could easily eat around the middle! The cookie part itself is very delicious, and I might consider making them again without the caramel center.
these are my new favorite! I bake them in mini muffin pans as little balls. They take a few more minutes to bake but stay much chewier in the middle.
These cookies are excellent. I’ve made them three times in three weeks and I know I will bake them many more times in the future. Thank you for sharing the recipe. One comment though: I often rely on a recipe’s listed “prep time, cook time, total time” when making decisions about what to make and when. This recipe states that it takes 30 minutes of prep time and 8 minutes baking time, for a total time of 38 minutes. But if you follow the recipe and refrigerate the dough, these cookies take at least an hour and 8 minutes to make (and, in my experience, actually quite a bit longer than that). I’m not complaining about how long it takes, just that the listed time is not accurate.
These cookies were delicious!! I made these for a Christmas cookie exchange and they were a gigantic hit. I used green sugar to roll them in (along with cinnamon) and they were very festive. I made a double batch, and using my medium cookie scooper got 5 dozen cookies out. People are already asking for them again!
Thank you for posting this recipe. I made these cookies tonight and I can say with 100% honesty, this is the most delicios cookie I have ever tasted. Mine turned out a bit flat. I’m wondering if I didn’t let the butter cool enough before I mixed the batter up?? Still, the flavor was outrageously addictive. I don’t think I will ever bake another cookie before browning the butter first. So good.
AWE! Thank you so much! I really appreciate that! Thank you for your sweet comment. Yes, cooling the butter will help. Thank you for following along with me! XOXO
I have made this recipe over an dover again for the past several years. I did have to make adjustments to make the recipe dairy free, like making homemade caramel that doesn’t have milk or butter, and instead of greek yogurt I use dairy free yogurt. This is the most requested dessert by my 3 boys and Husband. Thank you for sharing. I am in the process of doing my blog for my dairy free recipe and will give your page the credit for original recipe.
This snickerdoodles will be perfect combine with coffee. I will try this recipe. thanks for sharing 🙂
I have never tried it with coffee. Hope you love it!! XOXO
So delicious!! I used caramel bits instead of the squares thinking it would reduce step of cutting caramels and it worked but not very caramel-y results so next time i’ll try it with the squares. nonetheless these are so amazing and will definitely be making over and over again! Thx for sharing!!!
I chilled my dough for several hours and it’s hard as a rock. I can’t do anything with it now. Not sure what went wrong.
As I have my dough chilling…. Reading over the recipe I notice the 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt, I did not see where to put it in…. The dough tasted yummy though… I will sprinkle the tops with some but I am missing where to put in the 1/2 teaspoon. Hopefully they will still turn out..
Let me start off by saying, I’m not a snickerdoodle fan. If I were standing in front of a buffet of cookies, a snickerdoodle would be one of my last choices. That being said… THESE snickerdoodles have an AMAZING flavor! I loved them! Brown butter adds awesome flavor, there’s no denying it. I used soft Lancaster caramels. I cut each caramel in 1/4’s and added 3 pieces. The recipe says to chill the dough for at least 30 minutes, which I did the minimum chill time, and I felt the cookies spread way too much. I definitely think they need to chill longer than 30 minutes. After baking up most of the cookies, I thought of putting the last few rolled balls into the freezer for 15 minutes, and they were quite firm, and baked a little thicker than the others. Also, don’t make the mistake I made with my first batch of browned butter. I allowed the butter to sit in the hot pan (once it was taken off the heat), and when I went back to check on it after it had cooled, those brown bits had turned much darker. SO, I tossed it, and started again. To be on the safe side the second time, I poured the browned butter into a different bowl, so the hot pan wouldn’t keep cooking the milk solids. Also, I put the butter in the fridge to cool. It probably took 30-45 minutes to get to room temp. BTW, I brought these cookies to my class that I teach at church. The kids in my class are 10-year-olds. I brought 4 kinds of cookies, and I always love getting feedback on my food, so I asked all the kids which cookie was their favorite, and I was surprised that almost all of them said these snickerdoodles. These are definitely a keeper. Also, these cookies sat out on my counter-top for 3 days, and they were still soft.