Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes you eat a delicious (browned butter) chocolate chip cookie (with sea salt on top) and think...you know what could make this better? If there was a salted caramel inside.

And sometimes you get a bag of soft salted caramels for your housewarming. And you know what you have to do.

Now....in a perfect world....there would just be an even layer of caramel in the middle of the entire cookie. In my opinion. But there is something fun about the surprise of a gooey salted caramel right in the middle of your seemingly standard(ish) chocolate chip cookie.

And you impress people when you give them as gifts. I love bringing little treats to my boss and my brides when I'm doing the wedding planning thing-these cookies had the honor of being a shared treat. And everyone who was gifted with them was VERYYY happy :D

They're a fairly sturdy, yet chewy, browned butter chocolate chip cookie with yummy bites of chocolate and sea salt on top (NECESSARY!) and then you get a bit of that chewy, gooey, sweet and salty caramel. When they're warm? TOTAL MAGIC. Messy. But magical!

Browned Butter Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups with Graham Cracker Crusts

After my last attempt at caramel sauce in a chocolate chip cookie...I decided to try again. I was hopeful the caramel would be more noticeable. Good news: it was! Slightly. But it helped that I drizzled the cups with caramel too. And that I used browned butter...actually....browning butter is just helpful, period. Mmmmm...

Anyway, when I decided to make this recipe I realized that I was lacking in pretzels (which were what originally crusted these cups)--so instead I made little graham cracker crusts. Which meant these cookie cups taste a little s'moresy...ya know...minus the marshmallows...stay with me on this.

Cookie cups are great-you never have to worry about if they're going to rise correctly or spread too much or anything. They just bake up in their little muffin cups and you are guaranteed a thick, chewy, gooey cookie. Plus, now there's a whole world of putting a crust on your cookie. So it's like cookie + pie. Amazingness.

These cookies are perfectly portable yet soft and gooey on the insides. The browned butter adds that bit of depth, and the caramel drizzled on top with the salt adds that mmm mmm salty goodness to the sweet. The graham cracker crust is buttery and delightful and...chocolate chips...always our friends. They're crazy addictive and simply irresistible. Find out for yourselves, my friends!

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies-Holiday Recipe Exchange:Week 10 (Butter).

I'd heard the hype, I knew all about browned butter. And I believed it, it sounded awesome. And you know what?

It. is. AWESOME.

This was exactly as amazing as I expected. For those of you who don't know:

When you cook butter until it browns, something magical happens. It all of a sudden has the ability to add an unbelievable amount of complexity and an almost smoky, nutty quality to anything you use it in. 

These cookies were SO. GOOD. Michael's take on the difference in taste? 

"I can taste the butter more."

Yes, sweetie, I'm sure you could.

In general it's just a great chocolate chip cookie, lovely texture and great, unique taste from the browned butter. And, since the butter is obviously the star of this cookie show-what better submission for a butter themed Holiday Recipe Exchange? 

(Previous Holiday Recipe Exchange posts: Week 1 Parts 1 and 2, Week 3, Week Six, Week Seven, and Week Nine)