Salted Caramel Shortbread Cookies

When you’re mixing up shortbread, it won’t mix up into a cohesive mass like most cookie doughs do. It stays pretty crumbly. But that’s okay! It’s just the nature of it. All you need to do is work it by had a little. Squeeze and press it together, then carefully roll it out and you’ll have a nice cohesive cookie ready to bake.

A little tip I use every single time I roll out cookie dough. I like my cookies to all be the exact same thickness, not only so they look good, but also because they’ll all bake evenly. I’ve had these 1/4-inch square dowels for many, many years. I also have 1/8-inch ones, but I don’t use those nearly as often. So, what I do is I take my two square dowels and place one on each side of my dough. I then roll the dough out until my rolling pin hits the dowels. This way every cookie is the same thickness.

Salted Caramel Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Topping:

26 ounces Peter’s caramel
4 tablespoons milk
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
Coarse sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy.
3. Add flour and mix until just incorporated.
4. Your dough may not be a cohesive mass at this point. Don’t worry. Just work it with your hands and it will come together. Shortbread dough is crumbly, but presses together nicely.
5. Place half of the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll out until it’s 1/4-inch thick. With a 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as you can and place them on an ungreased baking sheet. Press the remaining dough back into a mass and roll out again. Repeat until you have used all the dough.
6. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until just starting to brown. Transfer to a baking rack and allow to cool completely.
7. Using a kitchen scale, weigh out 26 ounces of Peter’s caramel.
8. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the caramel and milk on high for 2-3 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until it’s melted and smooth.
9. Add 1-2 teaspoons of caramel to each cookie, then sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
10. In another microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate and butter on high for 1-2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth. Drizzle over the cookies.

Enjoy!

Note:
I like to ensure an even thickness when I roll out cookie dough by rolling the dough between two 1/4-inch square dowels.