Salted Caramel and Peanut Butter Shortbread Recipe (2024)

Here's my tip for what to do with the egg white: put it in a small container and store it in the refrigerator. Months later find it in the back of the refrigerator and throw it away. Works for me every time.

I think that the hard caramel candy could be a Werthers kind of hard toffee/caramel.

1. As MargaretD said, what of the egg white? If not used, the ingredients should say "the yolk from one large egg."2. There are still plenty of people who don't know that there is a difference between the two most common Kosher salts you'd find in stores: Diamond Crystal and Mortons. Mortons is much saltier." Approximately 1 tablespoon Diamond Crystal = 1.5 heaping teaspoons Mortons. https://www.177milkstreet.com/2020/10/kosher-salt-brand

Since only 2 out of the 28 commenters made the recipe, I went for broke and followed the recipe exactly just now after a stressful late shift at work. GREAT tip about wrapping the rolling pin, thank you! Sorry Steve (the other who made the recipe), I kept the salt on because my stressed-out brain wanted salt and sweet. Great soft cookies, and a very forgiving recipe. They do go from baked to over-baked fairly quickly, so I recommend keeping a close eye on the oven near the end.

I LOVED these! A perfect bite of salt, butter, sweet and crunch. What more could you want? My single batch made 44 cookies and I used a T scoop. I did roll each one into a perfect Tablespoon measured ball and they had to bake a bit longer actually, around 15 minutes. They spread around the last 5 minutes. I didn’t do the additional sprinkle of salt, I didn’t feel it was necessary. Bake these! They’re perfect!

Can the author tell us what are hard caramels with suggestions if what was used

So…what are caramel hard candies? Something like Werther’s Originals?

I'm sure your homemade toffee would taste fine in this recipe, but toffee isn't the same as caramel. The flavors of the two are quite different, and making caramel at home is a much trickier proposition than making toffee, which is quite simple. While I like both flavors, I much prefer caramel over toffee. When I make these, I intend to follow the recipe and not make substitutions. But to each, their own

The egg white is never used for this recipe. Also I used Werther’s HARD Caramels. Soft caramel of any kind would create a mess.

Where does the egg white go?

Werther’s brand hard caramel candy, available (for me) at Walgreens.

Made these as directed. Very very good. Make sure to crush all the candy- the larger chunks puddled. I baked for about 15 minutes. Salt on top is a must!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen hard caramel candies. Can anyone suggest some brand names so I can get an idea what I’m looking for?

The "Butter Shortbread Dough" recipe indicates that only yolks are used for the cookies. Use the white for an omelet perhaps!

You could use the egg white to make coconut macaroons!

Keep a small container with egg whites in the freezer. They last a really long time. When you have several just defrost and make many lovely confections: Pavlovas, meringue cookies of various flavors (chocolate and pecan are the best), Claudia Fleming has a blueberry cornbread muffin that are so light they always gets raves, meringues for an Eaton Mess… on and on.

Skip the rolling pin and the noise, get a hammer. Wrap ziploc in a dishtowel and smash the Werther’s on a concrete floor/your drive. As others have noted, pieces need to be quite small or they make puddles that cool into glass shards. I recommend NOT chilling this doughbefore adding candies/PB as it makes mixing the add ins very difficult. (I had made a big batch of the basic dough the night before and had intended to make all the riffs the next day. Had to warm up the dough in order to do so.)

These are my favorite cookies on the whole planet — blink and you’ve eaten 5 or 6. Use a hammer on the carmel candies and throw all the crumbs in, too.

I made the dough, planning to make two of the recipes. I made it two days before I was going to bake the cookies. The dough was unusable because it was so crumbly. An egg yolk was not sufficient to hold it together. I threw it out and made another batch which I immediately made into these cookies plus the sugar sparkly ones. The salted caramel ones really spread. They look nothing like the picture. They taste okay but the caramel is very hard. I used Werther Originals. The Sparkly ones look okay

These cookies take much longer than 12 minutes to bake

This is THE ONE. No cookie before this cookie! The recipe has spread far and wide because I included it in my Xmas cookie boxes last year and everyone asked for the recipe, making it for their loved ones and disseminating it across the country! I wouldn’t use Jif in a recipe that calls for natural peanut butter. It contains shortening and extra sugar and other yukky things.

Second year making them. Love them. Ours did spread a bit more this year -- not sure why. Doesn't matter -- taste is still great. We use Werther's hard candies for those who were asking.

Delicious!!! My caramels melted out and around the cookie, not beautiful, but intriguing.

Excellent cookie!

Can I use Jiff peanut butter??

Unwrap the candy before crushing. It was a pain to unwrap all the crushed wrappers. This way you can also see the size of the pieces.

I use the chocolate toffee candy from Trader Joe’s. Works like a charm and charm. I skip the peanut butter. Yummy

Really delicious. My husband liked them so much he gave me a Paul Hollywood Handshake. I added a little bit of extra peanut butter just because we’re big fans in this house. Will make again!

Fabulous cookies! Like most shortbread, I roll into two logs, chilled and sliced. Works perfectly! Broke up the Werther candies in the food processor and sifted out excess caramel candy dust so cookies were not too sweet.

Best cookies ever! I added milk chocolate chips and dry roasted peanuts. Baked for 12 minutes on the nose and used a T scoop - perfectly baked. I think weighing your dry ingredients is key to success on this one and not over mixing.