This morning at the office, before I even wrote my first Post-it note my wonderful boss said,”Thanks for coming in this morning.” Man! I can be suckered into do almost anything with a little positive reinforcement. I worked 32 hours this week. Sigh. That delayed my cookie baking got delayed a little bit.
My lame husband would choose chocolate chip every single week if I let him! That’s just too boring for me! I think he would eat cereal for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and spaghetti for dinner for the rest of his life if it wasn’t for me. I tried to get him to branch out with several very unique cookie recipe ideas, but he chose the closest to the familiar with the tiniest of twists.
But. They turned out beautifully! This apartment is even trickier than the last one to cook in because the cookie sheet fits about four cookies at a time. Try doing a Jillian Michaels dvd while you have cookies in the oven. And then your weights get buttery and slippery. Yuck!
Chocolate Chip Caramel Cookies (via Leslie Sarna)
Makes 4 dozen (if you can keep yourself from eating all the dough)
What you’ll need:
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 cup butter, room temp.
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 12oz. package of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
about 8 soft caramel chews
1 tbsp. milk
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
In a small pot, place the milk and the unwrapped caramels over low heat. Stir until it’s nice and smooth and remove from heat.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Next add in the vanilla and eggs. Slowly add the flour mixture in batches. When it’s all incorporated, using a rubber scraper, mix in the chocolate chips and then drizzle in the caramel. You just want to fold the caramel in so there are nice ribbons of it running through the dough.
Scoop 1 inch balls onto a cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes. Remove and cool on a cooling rack. Enjoy!
They were hit. I was especially pleased with the texture. Just hard enough around the edges on the bottom, but still soft & chewy! Yay!
The whole time I was making them I was listening to the She & Him Christmas album. The Christmas lights really got me into the holiday mood! You can download The Christmas Waltz (which was actually my fave) for freezies here.
Hope your Friday night is cozy! 
Yummy, decadent recipe!
Is that Zooey Deschanel? she’s a quirky, but cute, oddball! I would LOVE that recipe. You need to make them for me. And I am probably just like Kevin when it comes to good old chocolate chip cookies….they’re just too hard to beat, or tie.