Fudgy Brownie Cookies Stuffed with Caramel

Fudgy Brownies Cookies - made dough September 30, 2016 from Crazy for Crust

It's National Chocolate Day! Start the celebration right by firing up your oven and setting your inner chocoholic free.

Sometimes you need just a straight shot of chocolate. And sometimes you want to temper a dark chocolate cookie with the added decadence of caramel, preferably tucked inside as a nice surprise when you bite into it.

I made this dough, wrapped it around individual salted caramels from Trader Joe's, put them in the freezer and forgot about them for a couple of weeks. Technically I didn't forget them because I could see them in the ziploc freezer bag every time I opened my freezer. But I did forget about the caramel inside when I didn't bake them off right away.

So it really was a surprise when I took a bite. Actually, I broke the cookie in "half" first for picture taking but it actually broke in 1/3 and 2/3 pieces, probably because the cookie had cooled enough that the caramel had firmed back up so it wasn't conducive to "breaking" cleanly. So I took the initial pictures, thinking it was just a pure dark chocolate cookie. Then I took a bite of the 2/3 piece of the cookie and hit caramel. Oh yeah, that's right, I remembered what I did there.

It was actually a good call to modify these cookies with the caramel inside. When you use a high quality dark cocoa like I always do (Pernigotti!), the caramel provides a nice sweetness, not to mention chewiness, to the dark chocolate of the cookie. If you want to be a purist, you can leave out the caramel but I liked it with it as a nice surprise.

1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1. Place the butter and unsweetened chocolate in the top half of a double boiler set over hot, barely simmering water. Whisk until smooth and melted. Let cool for 5-10 minutes.
2. Stir in sugar. Add cocoa, vanilla, salt and baking soda and stir until just combined. Add egg and stir until just combined.
3. Slowly stir in flour until just combined then fold in chocolate chips.
4. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and split in half. Over one half, lay salted caramel square, cover with second half and seal edges together, patting cookie dough into smooth, thick disc. Repeat with remaining dough. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space frozen dough discs. Bake for 10 minutes or until most of the glossy sheen is gone. Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from baking sheets and transferring to wire racks to cool completely.