Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookies

I, like most olim, am guilty of thinking that all my precious American products do not exist here in the holy land. For the most part, I just don't know where to find them. So you can imagine the utter joy I had in finding soft caramels at the local "super bonus". To be honest, they have a bit of an artificial vanilla aftertaste, but I'm willing to overlook that and be giddy with thoughts of caramel apples, caramel brownies... you name it.

These cookies are really quite easy. You make a relatively stiff dough, and wrap it around your caramels. Now, if it wasn't 50 degrees (F) in my house, I would have rolled the caramels in my hand to make them into flat, round discs. But, alas, the trials of aliyah rear their ugly heads in my cold, cold house.

After wrapping in dough, I wet the tops of the cookies with water and sprinkled some coarse salt on top.

Halfway through baking, I smushed the cookies down a bit to make them flat, since I have an aesthetic aversion to tall round cookies. If you can smush your caramels, you won't need to do this.

And there you have it, lovely little caramel surprise cookies. I am thinking they would go nicely in a mishloach manot basket that is surprise food themed (stay posted for the finished baskets!). 

In the mean time, enjoy cooking like an American! And if you find candy melts for cake pops, keep me posted!


Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookies
adapted from two peas and their pod

1 1/4 cups white flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup plain yoghurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
24 caramel pieces, unwrapped and smushed as much as possible
Sea salt

Preheat oven to 350f/165c. Melt butter in saucepan (or microwave, if you've got one), add sugars and cocoa. add yoghurt and vanilla, mix. add dry ingredients and mix well until the dough comes together nicely. wrap around the caramels.

Lightly wet the tops of the cookies with water and sprinkle coarse salt or sea salt on top (optional).

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Try to resist eating immediately- they really need to cool for a bit until the caramel firms up a bit.