Gooey Salted Caramel Vanilla Butter Cookies | Homemade Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Is it better to use salted or unsalted butter for sugar cookies? ›

Baking recipes typically call for unsalted butter because the amount of salt in salted butter varies depending on the brand – there is no “industry standard.” For example, if you use one brand of salted butter in a recipe, and we use another, our baked goods could end up tasting very different from one other.

If you only have salted butter, go ahead and use it .. just do NOT add the salt that the recipe calls for. It should be just fine when making cookies.

The biggest difference between sugar cookies and butter cookies is that sugar cookies are often rolled thin and cut out using cookie cutters. While butter cookies will hold their shape while baking, the dough is much softer and for best results should be piped onto a baking sheet and then baked.

It all comes down to flavor! Salted butter will almost always add a little something extra when it comes to taste. It's also great for those who like the combination of sweet and salty, like in the case of cowboy cookies.

You can use salted butter instead of unsalted butter if that's all you've got — especially if you're making something simple like cookies where the chemistry of adding salt in a specific amount and at a certain time won't have a meaningful impact on the outcome (as it would with yeasted bread).

Both salted butter and unsalted butter can be used interchangeably in any recipe, but if the recipe calls specifically for unsalted butter, it's probably because the recipe has been tested with it and is preferred for that particular recipe.

The only food where variety more or less matters is cookies: Since dark brown sugar has a higher acidity than light, it can cause the baking soda in your recipe to react, which may force your cookies to rise more during their designated baking time. However, the overall differences are moderate at most.

Overmixing the dough

If you overmix the dough, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. The best way to fix this is to add more liquid to the dough. This can be done by adding milk, water, or even melted butter. You may also need to add more flour to the dough if it is too wet.

In that role, white sugar aerates the dough when creamed with butter for thick and puffy cookies. Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more.

By adding extra sugar, you can bake the cookies to a slightly higher temperature without over-baking, which will allow for a crispier final cookie as well as deeper flavor development.

What kind of butter is best for baking sugar cookies? ›

Unsalted, American-style butter works well in goods like cookies, pound cakes and pancakes that require the high-fat content of conventional butter and more flexibility with salt and flavor content.

“Most people think the butter should be so soft that it's broken down, but the most important thing is that you want a little bit of give to the butter.” If you want to get technical, she says the precise temperature should be between 63 and 68 degrees — where it's cool to touch, but your finger can leave an indent.

Salt is a flavor enhancer that makes sweet baked goods somewhat sweeter, balances the bitter and rounds out the savory. However, sometimes salt is a key flavor note. In some brown sugar, molasses, chocolate and/or caramel baked goods you may taste a salty note on your tongue before the sweet.

Best for Baking: Land O'Lakes Unsalted

“Generally, European-style butters are easier to work with due to the higher butterfat content.” Land O'Lakes also makes an “extra creamy” European-style unsalted butter that might be even better for baking, though we didn't test it out.