Cooking with Kelly: Surprise Inside Salted Caramel Nutella Cookie Recipe

My days at home are numbered - my impending move to Seattle is barreling down on me like a freight train. The As such, I have a lot of specialty baking items to clear out. And letting high-end cocoa powder, fancy sea salt and nutella go to waste is a sin. It's a commandment, I know it.

So I set out to use up some of this stuff in the best way possible. I had some caramels to use up, too, so looked at a way I could pull a few ingredients together in the most decadent, delicious way possible. These cookies turned out amazingly well - they're a lot of work, but the end result makes it quite worth while.

To make these cookies work, you start with a fairly decadent chocolate dough, then nestle pieces of caramel, a sprinkle of course sea salt and a dollop of nutella in between layers of the dough. Then, pinch the layers together to seal the tasty goodness into it and top with a dusting of sea salt.

These cookies, like most cookies, are
best served warm. It keeps the caramel and nutella inside molten and melty, which is the best combination ever, in my opinion. However, you can freeze the dough and bake them in batches so you don't have 30 delicious nutella/caramel stuffed cookies sitting around tempting you at every turn. Just sayin'.


Surprise Inside Salted Caramel Nutella Cookie Recipe
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 large chocolate bar, chopped

Sea salt
Nutella

Soft caramels

Melt the butter over medium high heat, then remove from the heat and add the sugar and cocoa powder until combined. Whisk the eggs together, then stir into the sugar combination. Whisk the dry ingredients together and dump the butter mixture in along with the chopped chocolate. Stir until everything is just combined.

Chill the dough for an hour to make it easier to work with. Using a small scoop, start with a tablespoon of dough. Use your thumb to make an indent, then add a teaspoon or so of nutella, a sprinkle of sea salt and a chunk of caramel. Top with another flattened tablespoon of dough, pinching the edges to seal. Top with more salt and get ready to rock by either freezing the cookies or placing six on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for nine minutes at 350 degrees, then consume ASAP. Or sooner.