{Sweet Friday} Sea Salt Caramel-Stuffed Snickerdoodles

Want the full name of these cookies?  It would be Sea Salt Caramel-Stuffed Brown Butter Snickerdoodles.  I know.

My love affair with everything that comes out of the Ambitious Kitchen blog has continued, and when I made Monique's brown butter snickerdoodles a few weeks ago it was as if I'd never tasted a snickerdoodle before.  Because I'd never tasted a snickerdoodle like this before.  The brown butter and dark brown sugar made the cookies taste almost like little caramel-cinnamon delights.  Which got me thinking about caramel...

And specifically about salted caramel, because that's my favorite kind.

And then I thought, what if I took this caramel-y cookie and stuffed more caramel inside?  Would it be caramel overload?  Or caramel heaven?  Well, I can tell you now, it's caramel heaven.

With the caramel inside, the cookies take on an intensely chewy texture, but still have that snickerdoodle crisp on the outside.  These babies are rich - for maybe the first time in my adult life, I really can't eat more than one cookie in a sitting - but that one cookie is so nutty, so perfectly textured, so simple yet complex in flavor, one is all you need.

I skipped the traditional snickerdoodle last step of rolling the dough in a cinnamon-sugar mix because I really wanted to let the caramel flavor take center stage here, but feel free to do the rolling if you'd like an extra punch of cinnamon.

The caramels I used were Trader Joe's Fleur de Sel Caramels, which are a chewy salted caramel.

If you use a very soft caramel, your cooled cookies will have a very soft center.  If you use a hard caramel, your cooled cookies will have a hard center (I wouldn't recommend this way).

I hope you can find the time to give these a try this weekend...and of course, that you love them as much as I do!

Sea Salt Caramel-Stuffed Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
1 c. unsalted butter
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. packed dark brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tbsp. plain yogurt
24 chewy salted caramels

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Cook several minutes until it starts to turn golden, whisk for about a minute, then remove from the heat.  Let cool slightly.

Whisk flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl to blend.

Using an electric mixer, beat the browned butter and sugars until well combined.  Add the whole egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and yogurt and beat until blended.

Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350º.

Scoop about a tablespoon of dough into the palm of your hand and flatten it.

Place a caramel in the center.

Scoop another tablespoon of dough on top and seal all edges to be sure the caramel stays inside, then shape into a ball and place on a baking sheet.

Continue with remaining dough and caramels, spacing the balls a couple inches apart on the baking sheet.

Bake about 10 minutes, until the edges are golden.  Let cool several minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Click here for a printable recipe.

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