Salted Caramel Cookies

I had been craving a cookie like this for a few weeks now - I thought, "How hard could it be??"  So I searched for a recipe and made it my own.  However, I think that I will still be tweaking this recipe bc, as it is, it's a bit messy.  BUT, it's delicious!!  Definitely worth the effort.  Salted caramel is so popular right now, and with sea salt and caramel, you can't go wrong!!

You'll need:

• 2 1/4 c. flour
• 1 tsp baking soda  (**note: the picture shows baking powder, but you need baking soda - I got myself together after the picture)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 sticks softened butter
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 3/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 pkg chewy caramels
• 1 pkg soft caramels
• sea salt

Mix together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt).  Set aside.

Mix together butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and eggs, until creamy.

There will still be chunks of butter at this point, that's a-okay 

Add flour mix a little at a time until you have mixed in all the flour.  This is the point where I want to start eating the batter.  But I don't.  Because I don't want to eat raw eggs.  But I do.  But I don't.  Anyway, moving on...

This is the part I will consider optional bc I don't think I'm going to include these next time I make this recipe.  I used these soft caramels, 

chopped them up into small pieces,

And added it to my batter.  It's good for that added caramel taste, but it makes for a messy cookie.  Next time I think I may add caramel sauce to the batter, or just leave the batter plain.  You'll see why in a minute.

Put small spoonfuls of batter on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Sprinkle a little sea salt.

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.  As soon as you take them out of the oven, put chewy caramels on top (cut into pieces) and sprinkle with sea salt.  In the future, I think I will simply do this to add the caramel and eliminate the soft caramels.  This worked best and wasn't so messy during baking.

Here's a reality shot.  This is to illustrate the importance of smaller is better with these cookies!!  The smaller spoonfuls baked more evenly and were easier to remove from the parchment paper.  The parchment paper was super for these cookies, too, bc it was made for easy clean up with the sticky caramel.

It took a little bit of patience, 

but these cookies are worth it!!  Savory AND sweet, the perfect combination!

Let me know what you think!