Been away from the kitchen with some travels lately but here’s the first of a few Christmas recipes to share with you, starting with a wonderful cookie for the Baking Exchange or to share with your guests. I found the caramel stayed a bit soft even after freezing so make sure and store upright.
Accessories: Stainless bowl and roller/scraper combination
Quantity: 4 dozen cookies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Ingredients:
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 cup butter or margarine (soft)
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 cups flour
- 1 1/4 cup cocoa
- 2 tsp salt
- 10 melted caramels & 2 tbsp. cream
- 3/4 cup pecans ( chop 1/4 cup coarsely and the rest fine)
- 2 oz melted chocolate
Crack eggs into bowl and turn on low speed, add the butter, cream, sugar and vanilla. Turn up speed till all ingredients are blended, if the butter is to cold this may take a bit longer but it will blend in. Add the dry ingredients and blend on medium speed till looks well mixed and nice and fluffy looking.
Scoop up approx. 1 – 2 tbsp. of dough according to desired cookie size and shape into balls. Indent the middle with your thumb or an blunt object that size, handle of my pizza cutter works perfect for this. Bake for 10 minutes or till done but still soft. While cookies are baking melt the caramel and add cream to it. Remove cookies from oven and immediately indent center again to keep nice size indentation. After a couple minutes add a couple pieces of coarsely chopped pecan to the indentation and then fill with caramel. Remove cookies to cooking rack and allow to set as caramel will need to firm a bit as cookies cool before packaging up.
Drizzle cookies with the melted chocolate and sprinkle with the finely chopped pecans. Easiest to do this while on cooking rack as shown above and wipe drips form counter once chocolate has cooled and set. Freeze in single layers then package later remembering to keep upright.