Chocolate Caramel Pecan Cookies

Originally posted on Facebook March 15, 2009

A few weeks ago I bought a bunch of baking supplies and I was keeping them in the cupboard. But then my dad came home and started eating them, so I moved them to my room. Unfortunately, these supplies included caramels which I have been steadily eating since I moved them to my room. So this week I decided to use up these caramels so I would stop eating them. I also had an abundance of pecans so I thought I'd try something with caramels and pecans. I also wanted to bake something I could share with my research report group for our meeting on Saturday. So, I found a recipe for Chocolate Pecan Carmel Cookies.

Chocolate Caramel Pecan Cookies

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter (margarine)
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 oz chopped dark chocolate (you could probably use chocolate chips but I liked how the chopped chocolate turned out)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Caramels (those wrapped Kraft ones, or you can get them in bulk)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Cream the sugars and butter together until fluffy. When mixture is light and fluffy, add egg and beat. Then add vanilla and beat.
In another bowl sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Then slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Finally, stir in chopped chocolate and pecan pieces.
Form dough into balls and make a hole in the center with your thumb. Then place a caramel in this hole and close the dough over the caramel.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Makes about 20 cookies.

These were amazing! They were best just an hour or two out of the oven because the caramel was still melted. They were still really good after when the caramel had hardened, except then my brother couldn't eat them because of his braces. I think they would be good even without the caramel as well. But the caramel makes for an extra tasty surprise in the middle. When I make them again I will probably double the recipe and make some without caramels for my brother.