Chocolate Caramel Cookies

You can’t really go wrong with chocolate and caramel.

Well, I guess you could, but not with this recipe. It’s easy and they turn out delicious. Plus, this is one of those recipes where the final product seems like it was really complicated, but it’s not.

But you don’t need to tell anyone that…

Difficulty: easy
Print

Ingredients

· 1 cup flour

· ½ cup sweetened cocoa powder

· 1 ½ t baking soda

· 1 t salt

· 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate (1 bar)

· ¾ cup butter, separated, softened to room temperature

· ¾ cup sugar

· 1 egg

· 1 ½ t vanilla

· 2 t dark rum

· 25 caramels

· Chunky sea salt

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt until well combined and set that aside.

Chop up the bittersweet chocolate and put it into a small glass bowl along with ¼ cup of the butter. Microwave it for 10 seconds, take it out and stir. Keep doing this, in 10 second intervals, until everything is melted and blended. Put this aside and go back to your dry ingredients.

Add in the remaining ½ cup of butter to your dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. Then do the same with the sugar – mix until everything is well combined. Next, add in the egg, vanilla and rum and mix with your hand mixer until well combined. Put the mixer aside – you’re done with that.

Finally, pour in your chocolate butter mixture and gently mix in with a wooden spoon. Basically you’re just folding it in until it’s just combined.

Cover the bowl and refrigerate for about a half hour. Not too much longer – you want to harden the dough a bit but it also needs to be soft enough for you to be able to manipulate.

While the dough is chillin’, this is a good time to clean up and then wash your hands – you’re going to be handling the dough and if you don’t – gross.

Also while the dough is chilling, unwrap the caramel candies. This is an annoying task so if you have someone else to do it for you, I definitely recommend that.

After your half hour, take the dough out of the fridge. Spoon a tablespoon-sized bit of dough into your hand, take a caramel and wrap the dough around the caramel so that its completely covered. Put this cookie onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and press down lightly on it, so it’s not quite a ball. I put 5 to a sheet.

Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes, or until the cookies are puffed and firm to the touch. Take out of the oven and immediately sprinkle each one with a little chunky sea salt. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.