Chocolate Caramel Cookies with Sea Salt

This round of the recipe swap is desserts, which you can probably guess, is right up my alley! I got this recipe for chocolate caramel cookies from The Jey of Cooking. The host of the swaps, Sarah from A Taste of Home Cooking, was worried that I had likely made these, as I make so many cookies. I hadn’t made these and I was really excited for this recipe because I love anything salted caramel.

I bake with caramel and it can be touchy. I noticed that the blog where Jey had gotten the recipe used caramel bits, but Jey used chopped caramel. I usually use caramel bits, but I bought some caramels for this recipe. I mixed it all up, and baked them. Oh my, what a miserable failure! Caramel explosions, hard and brittle cookies, ! I had 2 cookies that were semi-photo-worthy so I started to write up the recipe and just call it “experience.” In writing the recipe up, I realized I’d massively messed up the cookie. Too little flour, too much baking powder. So I figured I would give it another try.

I made a new batch, this time I used caramel bits as that’s all I had left at home. Well, this batch turned out just great. I know that the caramel bits do get hard once the cookies cool, but you can just microwave them for 15 seconds for the fresh out of the oven taste. For the first batch, I dipped the tops in salt, but that was too much salt (and I love salt). I did a generous sprinkling of salt on the second batch and that was the right amount. So these are just lovely, as long as you follow the recipe!

Chocolate Caramel Cookies with Sea Salt

2 cups chopped chocolate

¼ cup butter

2 eggs

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

¾ cup packed brown sugar

½ cup flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1-1/2 cups chopped caramel or caramel bits

Sea salt (I used Pink Hawaiian salt)

In a double boiler or a microwave, melt the chopped chocolate. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter. Cool slightly.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla until combined.  Add the chocolate mixture and brown sugar, stir on medium until incorporated. Add the flour and baking powder, stir on low until just combined. Stir in the caramel by hand. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-1/2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. If the dough is too firm, allow to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Shape the dough into 1” balls. Place them on the baking sheet and flatten slightly.

Generously sprinkle the tops of the cookies with sea salt. Bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool on the cookies sheet for 10 minutes, allowing the caramel to set. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from The Jey of Cooking