This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe comes from Baking with Dorie. Caramel Crunch-Chocolate Chunklet Cookies are a mouthful to say but were something I was keen to make as they sounded easy and unusual and delicious. Basically a chocolate chip shortbread in a slice and bake recipe (you roll the dough into a log, freeze it and then slice it and bake the rounds in muffin tins) where the “caramel” in the recipe comes not from adding any caramel but, per Dorie:
You won’t find caramel in the ingredient list, yet it’s the flavor you catch with the first bite. The alchemy happens in the oven. Because these slice-and-bake cookies are baked in muffin tins until their bottoms and sides are deeply golden, the butter and sugar brown so completely that they produce the full, nutty, edgily sweet flavor of caramel. A treat! But not the cookies’ only treat. Their texture is a delightful mix of crisp and tender, the sign that they’re shortbread at heart. And the addition of chopped walnuts and small chunks of chocolate means that they could rightly be called chocolate chip cookies, though perhaps ones that lived briefly in France.
I made these when I was back home in Sydney briefly and had to have a couple of goes – still figuring out dad’s oven (mum didn’t leave any notes about it and we’re learning as we go). First round was a little TOO golden (but dad ate them anyway!) but the second batch was perfect. Melt-in-your-mouth buttery shortbread studded with chocolate and nuts (we used hazelnuts as that’s what we had on hand) with a hint of caramelisation? Perfection! I think dad’s even going to have a go at these sometime soon too!
This would be the type of cookie you could make, freeze and slice and have the cut cookies on hand for when a cookie craving strikes and your oven is already on – you could bake off a few at a time!
Get the recipe for Caramel Crunch-Chocolate Chunklet Cookies on p 170 of Baking with Dorie or here.
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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Baking with Dorie” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions are 100% my own.
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Your cookies look delicious.
It’s hard baking with unfamiliar ovens and in another continent? Kudos to you!
That’s dedication to the project to bake another round! The final result looks perfect.
They look great…and fun your dad got in on the action. 😍
so good with the hazelnuts (I used them, too). what a tasty treat for dad!
The cookies look great! They are very versatile, using different nuts and chocolate.
My first batch was too blond too. I used a silicon muffin pan and I wondered if that prevented the caramelization. Glad you were able to bake with your Dad.
Very true on figuring out someone else’s oven…each oven has a mind of its own. Too fun that your dad was happy to eat them anyway, I think we would have the same deal here…Mark wouldn’t want to see any chocolate go to waste. Your cookies look beautiful. I am finally feeling good again and made them today just in time for Mark to have them for ballgame snacks…he was very appreciative.