Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Hello Christmas Cookie Season!! I'm obsessed with cookies so this gives me one more reason to love the holidays. I created this recipe to be a no refrigeration necessary recipe. A lot of chocolate crinkle cookie recipes require that the dough be refrigerated 2 - 4 hours before baking, I don't have time for that =). Mostly I just don't have the patience for that especially when I know what awaits me.

If you prefer you can omit the coarse sea salt from the recipe if you are not a fan of salted caramel. I personally am unequivocally in love with the addition. These taste like caramel brownies in cookie form. They are intensely delicious! If you are baking them for someone else you'll have a hard time wanting to gift them after all =). If you wanted to go all out with these cookies you could even toss in some semi-sweet chocolate chips and toasted nuts. Enjoy!

Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Yields 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

10 tbsp salted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 dozen caramels (such as Kraft), unwrapped (Rolos would also be good)

coarse sea salt

3/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, set aside. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment, whip together butter, granulated sugar and light-brown sugar on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, stirring after each addition until combine. Mix in vanilla. With mixer set on low speed, slowly add in dry ingredients and mix just until combine.

Scoop dough out 2 tbsp at a time and roll into a ball. Press one caramel into the center, sprinkle top of caramel with a small pinch of coarse sea salt then fold cookie dough around caramel and salt (make sure the caramel is fully covered with dough around all sides). Shape into a ball once more then roll in powdered sugar*. Align cookies on Silpat lined or buttered cookie sheets and bake in preheated oven 11 - 13 minutes. Allow to cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool (note that the caramel will set after it cools, I liked these cookies best warm for soft gooey caramel). Store in an airtight container.

*I gave my cookies a generous coating of the powdered sugar before baking, but when they baked a lot of the powdered sugar baked and dissolved into the cookie anyway. So I found you can coat the top again with powdered sugar after baking (which is not pictured) to get a prettier cookie. If doing so roll in powdered sugar once before baking (doesn't need to be generously), then bake them and allow to cool and dip the tops of cookies in a fresh batch of powdered sugar (so there is no cross contamination) and shake off some of the excess. If you want to do it that way I would recommend using 1/2 cup powdered sugar for rolling before baking and reserve 1/4 cup in a separate bowl to dip and coat the tops after baking.

Recipe Source: Cooking Classy