Salted Caramel Butter Bars & 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies

When I saw this recipe over on Cookies and Cups I knew it was going to be one of my new favorite cookies. The pictures were so delicious looking and I love buttery shortbread cookies. So I thought this would be perfect for week 8 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies Blog Hop. Yep, you read that right. Week 8. Yoikes. That means Christmas is almost here! Yeah!

Salted Caramel Butter Cookies
For the crust:
1 lb. salted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbls. vanilla
4 cups flour

For the filling:
1 bag (14 ounces) caramel candies, unwrapped
1/3 cup milk or cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbls. coarse Sea Salt (optional)

To make the crust: In a large mixer, beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add vanilla. Slowly add the flour and mix until smooth.

Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
Spread about half of the crust dough in the pan to form the bottom crust.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Bake crust for about 20-25 minutes (until lightly golden brown.)
Remove from the oven and let cool for about 15 minutes.
While bottom crust is cooling and the remaining dough is chilling, make with filling.

Place the unwrapped caramels in a microwave safe bowl. Add cream and vanilla. Cook on high for 1 minute. Stir. Continue to cook in the microwave for 30 seconds and stir until all the caramel is melted.

Pour over crust layer. I didn't quite melt all of my caramel because I was a little impatient. I wanted to hurry up and bake these so I could eat them!
Sprinkle the caramel layer with Sea Salt if you chose to use it.

Crumble the remaining dough over the caramel layer and bake for 25-30 minutes (until filling is bubbly and top layer is lightly golden brown).
Now here's the hard part... let cool. I wanted to cut into them right away because they smelled so yummy. So fight it... let them cool.
Doesn't that look amazing??? Here's a close up so you can lick the screen =o)
When they are cool, cut into squares and devour!
I know I say a lot of cookies are amazing but these kick amazing into a whole new realm. These are fantastically amazing!

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