Pretzel, Chocolate Chip, and Caramel Cookies

"Chocolate is the first luxury. It has so many things wrapped up in it: Deliciusness in the moment, childhood memories, and that grin-inducing feeling of getting a reward for being good. "

-Mariska Hargitay

I was making chocolate chip and caramel cookies because I had some caramels in the pantry I wanted to put to use. Cookies seemed like a good vehicle. I made a few tasted them and thought they were o.k. They were quite sweet because well, prepared caramels are candy, after all.

I thought they needed another element. Maybe something salty? That's where the pretzels came in. I added some chopped pretzels to the dough, and it added the salty dimension I was missing.

These cookies have lots of chewy caramely bits, chock full of chocolate and pieces of salty pretzels.

I used prepared caramels like I mentioned. You need to chop them pretty small so they won't turn into a molten pool of caramel on your cookie sheet. An arduous task, chopping caramels into pea sized nuggets.


Pretzel, Chocolate Chip and Caramel Cookies

adapted from this recipe

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups (248 g.) all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 sticks (one cup) (230 g.) butter
1 cup (192 g.) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (100 g.) brown sugar
2 eggs
8 oz  (228 g.) chopped chocolate, or 1 1/4 cup chocolate chips
27 caramels (236 g.) such as Kraft, unwrapped and chopped into pea sized pieces, Mine came in 5.25 oz bag, I used a bag and a half, the leftover 1/2 a bag I used for topping
1 1/2 cups (76 g.) chopped pretzels

For Topping

a handful more chocolate chips, chopped caramels, and chopped pretzels

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 Fahrenheit, 160/170 Celsius, or Gas Mark 3.


In a bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in flour mixture. When all is incorporated, stir in chocolate chips (or chocolate pieces) caramels and pretzels.

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough 2 inches apart onto baking sheets covered in parchment paper. (the parchment is important some of mine had melted caramel on them, with the parchment it comes right off.)

Push the cookie down with your hand to flatten a little bit. Add a few bits of caramel, pretzel, and chocolate.

Bake for 12 minutes for a chewy cookie. Bake a little more if you want them more crisp. Let them cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheets, then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies.