Have you ever made caramel? I have, sort of. I have cooked brown sugar and butter together at least. And it smells really good. But I always assumed it was the brown sugar caramelizing that smells so good. But, I learned today that it’s actually the butter. Oh My Goodness! The nutty aroma of browned butter smells so good.

Browned butter isn’t much to look at, I know. But the smell is out of this world. See how rich and brown it is, peeking through the froth.
I came across this recipe through good ol’ faithful Pinterest and just couldn’t resist trying it. I’m hosting a baby shower for a friend of mine in a couple weeks and I plan to make cookies for the favor bags. But I couldn’t make just any old cookies, they must be gourmet. And I thought maybe this recipe would be worth a shot so I tried it out today. I followed the first couple steps as directed. But, I did meander off on my own for a few aspects of it.
For one, I didn’t use unsalted butter. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t waste my time on unsalted butter. Also, the idea of peeling and cutting milkmaid caramels, then wrapping dough around them sounded way too tedious for me. Instead, I just bought a bag of Kraft’s Caramel Bits. They are like chocolate chips, but caramel instead. (Super chewy and great for melting and dipping apples or marshmallows into). I threw a bag of them into the dough before placing the dough to set in the fridge.

These are so much easier than the old fashioned milk maid caramels we used when I was a kid. Why did Kraft take so long to make these?
When the dough had chilled, I started rolling it out. I used a medium sized scoop from Pampered Chef, but then shaped them into tall balls. I learned this trick from the blogging world and have been committed to tall cookies ever since. It helps them stay chewy in the middle and cooking just right around the edges. I will do this with all scoopable cookie dough from now on.
I rolled them in a cinnamon/sugar mixture and placed them on my stone (another Pampered Chef favorite!) and baked them for about 12 minutes. Oh my word, they turned out so delicious.
Yes, I will be making these for the baby shower in two weeks. Absolutely, yes.