Gochujang Caramel Cookies by Eric Kim

You might think that these cookies sound weird or gross but they are far from it.  
These are beautiful thin discs of gloriousness!
​You'll be surprised at how good these little crack nuggets are.
These are easy to make and easy to mess up if you don't follow the directions. 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons)/115 grams unsalted butter, very soft (Divided, 1 tablespoon and 7 tablespoons)
• 2 packed tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1 heaping tablespoon gochujang
• 1 cup/200 grams granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt or 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1-1/2 cups/185 grams all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon butter, the brown sugar and gochujang until smooth. Be sure that your eggs and butter are room temperature. Do not start this recipe with cold ingredients. Set aside for later, at room temperature.
2. In a large bowl, by hand, whisk together the remaining 7 tablespoons butter, the granulated sugar, egg, salt, cinnamon and vanilla until smooth, about 1 minute. Switch to a flexible spatula and stir in the baking soda. Add the flour and gently stir to combine. Do not over mix the dough. Place this bowl in the refrigerator until the dough is less sticky but still soft and pliable, 20 minutes. You need to chill your dough which gives the butter and eggs a chance to cool down and become less sticky. The chill time also lets the flour absorb more of the moisture, which helps.
3. While the dough is chilling, heat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 large sheet pans with parchment.

4. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. In 4 to 5 separately spaced out blobs, spoon the      gochujang mixture over the cookie dough. Moving in long circular strokes, swirl the gochujang mixture into the cookie dough so you have streaks of orange-red rippled throughout the pale dough. Be sure not to overmix at this stage, as you want wide, distinct strips of gochujang.
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5. Use an ice cream scoop to plop out 1/4-cup rounds spaced at least 3 inches apart on the sheet pans. (You should get 4 to 5 cookies per pan.) Bake until lightly golden at the edges and dry and set in the center, 11 to 13 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. until you start to see cracks in the tops of the cookies. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes before you remove them.  These cookies are very soft when they first come out of the oven and will break if you try to move them too soon. This is a good time to reshape them if needed.  You can use a large cup to swirl them or your spatula to form them back into a uniform circle. The cookies will flatten slightly and continue cooking as they cool. The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. Separate each layer with a bit of parchment paper to ensure they don’t stick to each other.