I was searching the net for a new, fun cookie recipe for Christmas and came across this salty chocolate caramel turtle cookies, brilliant recipe Jessica. Of course in my usual way I tweaked the recipe but just a bit. I wanted to add some whole grain, was afraid the recipe might be a bit to sweet for me and I liked the idea of a crunchy, salty top. Here is my version which was a BIG hit with my family. Do you have a cookie recipe you would like to share with me? xoxo
Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookies
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 cup dark chocolate, chopped or chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
8 caramels, chopped into fours*
Course sea salt to sprinkle on top
Cream butter and sugar together till creamy. Add eggs and vanilla, mix, scrape down sides and mix again. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and mix with butter until combined. Add pecans, caramel pieces and chocolate chips. Roll into balls about the size of large walnuts. See note **
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350. Set frozen cookies on parchment paper, about 1" apart and bake for 9-12 minutes. Let cool and drizzle with caramel sauce and sprinkle course sea salt on top.
Caramel sauce: melt 20 caramels and 1/8 cup of heavy cream in a sauce pan, stirring till melted.
. Notes:
* A trick to cutting the caramels, since they are sticky and hard to cut. Spray your scissors with pam. Also I cut the pieces more than Jennifer calls for, after I cut all the caramels into fourths, I cut all those pieces into halves.
** In Jennifer’s recipe she talks about refrigerating the dough so the caramel pieces do not sink to the bottom and stick to the cookie sheet. But a simple way to handle this is to cook the cookies on a parchment sheet, which I HIGHLY recommend (or greased foil). BUT it is important for the butter to re-harden so the cookies will not spread. See my cookie above, how flat they are? That is because I did not have time to re-chill the dough. Do not do what I did!!
Take the rolled cookies and set them close together on a pan and set them the freezer for an hour or two. Then bake them off frozen. Still use the parchment paper because caramel can be such a mess to deal with.