Rolo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Rolo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies - made July 5, 2013, recipe adapted from Mon Cheri Cooking School

Since the Nutella-Stuffed Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies turned out so well, I thought I'd try another chocolate chip cookie recipe and stuffing that too, this time with caramel and Rolos.  Sometimes when I have a chocolate chip cookie recipe I want to try, I make it as is and other times I dress it up a bit.  This recipe seemed so normal and typical of chocolate chip cookies that I decided it needed to be dressed up.  Hence the caramel stuffing.

By now I've become a cookie-stuffing expert.  Mini chocolate chips to make it easier to work with the dough, chilling the caramel and Rolos, and sealing the cookie dough tightly around the caramel so nothing leaks out during baking.  Except things didn't go as planned and the caramel leaked out anyway in most of the cookies, probably because they weren't as tightly sealed as I thought.  Not to be daunted, I cut around the cookies while they were still warm and peeled off the leaked, melted caramel.  That made the cookies a bit more presentable.  I brought these into work and people seemed to like them but I didn't get a chance to try them until a day later.  Normally I don't wait that long to taste test a cookie but I just didn't get a chance to eat this on the day I made it, probably because of the time of day/evening I baked them and I wasn't hungry then.  In any case, I wasn't impressed by these cookies.  They were okay but nothing out of the ordinary, even with their Rolo-caramel stuffing.  So these don't oust the Alton Brown recipe or the Nutella-Stuffed Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies in my recipe hall of fame.

1 cup light brown sugar, solidly packed

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup vegetable shortening, such as Crisco

½ cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

1. Using the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, beat both sugars with the shortening and butter until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs and vanilla extract.  Mix flour, soda, and salt in a large bowl.  Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until blended.  Stir in the mini chocolate chips by hand.
2. Flatten 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough in the palm of your hand and drop a dollop of caramel in the middle.  Add a Rolo in the center and wrap the cookie dough around the filling, sealing the edges tightly.  Patch any "holes" with a bit of cookie dough.  Chill or freeze until firm.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place chilled dough balls onto parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart.  Bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes until edges are brown and the middle is just barely no longer raw looking or doughy.  Keep cookies on baking sheets 5 minutes before transferring cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.  If any caramel has leaked out during baking, cut neatly around the cookie with a small sharp knife while still warm.