Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cups

Chocolate and caramel…a match made in heaven. Or, your kitchen if you make these. They’re pretty simple, and definitely different than a “typical” cookie. These are made in mini cupcake tins, but they’re definitely cookies. Kinda messy but definitely delicious. They’ll stand out from any other cookies, and I promise people will love them. Just have some napkins handy.

Difficulty: easy
Print

Ingredients

Cups

¾ cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs, brought to room temperature
2 t vanilla
2 cups flour
¾ cup sweetened cocoa (you can use unsweetened if that’s all you have, but sweetened will give you a richer chocolatey flavor)
1 t baking powder
1 t salt

Filling/Topping

½ cup butter, softened to room temperature
4 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
½ cup caramel sauce (Separated. You can make your own caramel, but since we only need a half cup it’s easier to just use the pre-made stuff)
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
1 t regular salt
36 pecan halves

Directions

We’ll start with the cookie cups. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat with your hand mixer until fluffy – maybe 2 or 3 minutes. Next, add in the eggs and vanilla and beat again until everything is well combined. Set this aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients – the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Slowly add the dry mixture into the butter mixture and continue mixing until everything is well combined.

Pick up the dough and shape it into a ball, then put it in the fridge to cool for a couple hours. You can leave it overnight, but regardless of what you do make sure to cover it tightly with plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out.

When you’re ready to make the cups, take out your mini cupcake tin and grease and flour it (or spray it if it’s not non-stick). Then, take the dough out of the fridge. Roll the dough into balls about the size of a walnut and put each ball into a mini cupcake divot.

Press the dough down with a blunt object – I used a pestle but you can use anything that has a thick, rounded end, like a melon baller or even a small shot glass. Basically, you’re forcing your ball of dough into a cup shape.

Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, until the cookies are pretty well set. Take them out of the oven and cool in the pan for another 5 minutes. At this time you’ll probably need to press down the centers again just a bit, as they will puff up (as cookies do). After the 5 minutes are up, remove the cups from the pan and let them set on a wire rack until they’re completely cooled.

While the cookie cups are cooling, you can make the filling.

Add the butter, cream cheese and 3 T of the caramel sauce in a bowl and mix with your hand mixer for a couple minutes until everything is smooth. Then, add in the powdered sugar, vanilla and salt and mix again until everything is well blended.

Take a spoon and fill each cookie cup with the filling you’ve just made. Once you’ve filled each cup, take a pecan half and put it on top of each one. Finally, take the remaining caramel sauce and drizzle it over each cup (you might want to nuke it for a couple seconds first, to make it easier to drizzle).