Leeds Street Bakery salted caramel cookies are justifiably famous. Chewy, dotted with caramel and flecked with sea salt, one of these and a long black is a recipe for never sleeping again. I came across a recipe in Good Food for Dutch caramel cookies and reading through it, I thought that they might just be a little like the famous Leeds Street ones. I quickly ran to the kitchen to find out.

Lois’ Dutch caramel cookies are shorter and slightly less chewy than the Leeds Street ones, but very delicious. I swapped white sugar for brown sugar to add a stronger caramel back note to the cookies and I couldn’t hold myself back from sprinkling the tops with sea salt.

Lois’ original recipe specifies to mix the smashed caramel shards through the cookie dough, but I found this resulted in the caramel at the edges of the biscuits melting and spreading across the tray as they baked. The second time around I sprinkled the caramel in the centre of each flattened ball of cookie dough which worked perfectly.

Salted caramel cookies (adapted from Lois’ recipe for Dutch Caramel Cookies, Good Food, p.169)

100g white sugar

100g butter

100g brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

150g white flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons cold water

Sea salt

To make the caramel:

Grease a small tray or baking dish and set aside. Put the white sugar in a small saucepan and put over a medium heat. Heat gently until the sugar turns into a dark amber syrup – you can swirl the pan if there are bits of undissolved sugar, but don’t stir with a spoon. Pour the caramel onto your greased tray and set aside to cool. Once set and cold, smash up into small pieces (not a powder) with the end of rolling pin or wooden spoon.

Biscuit dough:

Preheat your oven to 170°C. Cream butter, brown sugar, and vanilla and then add flour, baking powder and water. Mix until well-combined. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and place onto a flat tray lined with baking paper. Flatten the balls with your palm and sprinkle a pile of the caramel shards into the centre of each one. Push the caramel down into the biscuit and finally, sprinkle the tops with sea salt. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until golden brown (start checking the biscuits after 15 minutes – I didn’t use the fan bake setting in my oven).