1. Place butter and sugars in a stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed for about 90 seconds. Hand mixer and/or whisk also works- just make sure butter is extra soft, so you can easily mix.
2. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix on low speed until combined.
3. Sift all dry ingredients into a medium bowl (wait on the chocolate chips). Give the dry mix a good whisk or two so everything is combined. Add all ingredients to your butter and sugar mixture. Mix on low until flour is barely combined. Add chocolate chips.
4. At this point, I like to cover and chill my dough for 24 hrs (*see note below). You can also bake right away. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375.
5. Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, scoop dough into about 8 large cookies or 16 smaller cookies. Place 4-6 (depending on size) on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 10-12 minutes (if baking larger cookies, bake time could increase to ~14 minutes), or when edges are browning and tops look puffed up but still underdone (*see note about shaping cookies below). Remove from oven. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
6. Drizzle homemade, room temperature salted caramel sauce over each cookie and sprinkle chopped pretzels. Enjoy warm or at room temperature! Cookies can be stored at room temperature for 2-3 days.
If you try this recipe, I would love your feedback! Please leave a star rating, a comment below or on the reel in Instagram! Also please share what you made and tag @eatmaudes !! Thank you so much for stopping by and making yumminess with me!
Chilling cookie dough is a sure way to improve the flavor of your cookies! The chilling process allows the flour to moisten and the sugars and butter to get acquainted… which creates an almost butterscotch/caramel-like flavor to your cookies! It is heavenly! Try not to skip this step!
When baking your cookies, try not to crowd your pan as your cookies will spread. I usually bake 3-4 cookies at a time.
I often bake ugly looking cookies (LOL). To avoid ugly cookies, and to create uniformed cookies, I take a cup or cookie cutter and place it over each cookie- give it a nice swirl, which helps the cookie return to a circular shape. Its a bomb technique, and no skill required!