Sarah and I also made these last Saturday during our christmas cookie baking day! Well, lets just say they weren't as easy as they looked and the recipe made it sound. Several times I thought they were a for sure failure. And several times I was only mere seconds away from throwing the whole batch in the garbage. We would solve one problem along the way and then another one would arise. These little buggers gave us quit the battle.
Sure glad we stuck with them to the end though! They ended up turning out beautifully and one would never think we had so many issues! And the best part is...they tasted oh so good! Definitely worth all of the frustrations along the way!
Here is the recipe with our changes and recommendations!
Triple Chocolate Caramel Cookies
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 pkg (12 ounces) miniature chocolate chips
1 bottle caramel ice cream topping (we would recommend using the kind in the jar and not the squeeze bottle. The jar kind is thicker and won't cause a sticky, runny mess)
4 to 6 ounces dark chocolate candy coating, melted
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Combine flour and cocoa and gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in mini chocolate chips.
Roll into one inch balls. Place two inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Use your thumb to create a 1/2 inch indentation in the center of each ball. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. After you remove the cookies from the oven be sure to fix any cracks in the cookies that could cause the caramel to leak out of the middle.
Let the cookies cool completely and then fill the center of each cookie with caramel topping. Finish by drizzling the cookies with the melted chocolate candy coating.
Hope you enjoy the sweet escape!
-Jess
I created this cookie because I love the turtle combination (caramel, chocolate & pecans.) I tried several different ways to incorporate the caramel into a cookie before I thought of the caramel syrup. I always use Smuckers caramel sundae syrup in the squeeze bottle because it's easy to fill the indents, and I put it in the cookies before baking so that it can heat up enough as they bake to set so that it is still soft caramel but not runny. Rolo's and Kraft caramels became like rocks after baking, and making caramel from scratch was too time consuming.
ReplyDeleteI came up with this recipe about 16 or 17 yrs ago and have made numerous batches every Christmas. I did encounter cracks occasionally and realized that when I was rolling them quickly or rolling all the pans at once before making the indents was when the cracking was happening. The trick to keeping them from cracking is to roll the balls in your hands long enough to warm up the dough a bit, and make the indents as soon as you roll one pan of them. If you wait to make the indent the dough can dry out too much and lead to cracks.
If the dough is too dry due to low humidity or different moisture content in the flour, simply add a bit more butter a tablespoon or 2 at a time. Also I bake on commercial baking pans because they bake more evenly.
Hope this helps, and I'm glad you like my cookies :)