A chewy chocolate cookie wrapped around a piece of Caramilk chocolate bar – how wrong could we go today?
Carl got this recipe from the chef father of one of the volleyball girls he coached in Ottawa, and I think it is the first time in his life he ever asked for a recipe. Being a big cookie fan like he is, he had these at a team gathering and immediately knew he wanted me to be able to re-create them for him at home. While I don’t make them as often as some of my cookie recipes, it has nothing to do with their deliciousness, and everything to do with my laziness. I tend to like recipes where I can mix everything together in 5 minutes flat, plop ’em onto the cookie sheet and throw ’em in the oven. Productivity! Good smells! Snacks! Hooray!!
This particular dough has to be made ahead and then thoroughly chilled so you can shape it around a Caramilk square (or chunk of Mars bar, or Snickers, or whatever your favourite may be), and then the balls are rolled in sugar, before finally, FINALLY, you can put them in the oven. Also, to make sure your chocolate bar chunk isn’t too far away from the edges you want to make the cookies as eensy as possible so the first bite reaches the center surprise, and eensy cookies means OODLES of cookies, which means SCADS of time.
Ok, between making the dough and shaping the cookies maybe you’ll spend half an hour on these cookies. And you could make the dough a day or two ahead and keep it in the fridge. So really, ignore my drama. You can do it. I’m sure I’d be hard pressed to find others as lazy as me. Or, you can rush things like me and get your hands covered in sticky chocolate dough and be reminded yet again that patience is indeed a virtue for which to strive. Or get bored halfway through and throw chocolate chips or chopped oreos into the rest of the batter and proceed as you would for regular cookies…not actually a bad route since then it looks like you took the time to make cookies TWICE since there are two flavours!
The original recipe for these was called “Muriel’s Chocolate Bar Cookies”, but since I altered it slightly and have absolutely no idea who Muriel might be, I have renamed it the rather more self-explanatory Caramilk cookie, but as I mentioned earlier, feel free to use other chocolate bars you might have handy, although Caramilks do break into handy little squares and all the stickiness stays well-contained for the rolling process. Chilling your chocolate bars is also a good idea to keep them from melting in your warm little hands while shaping the dough around them.
- 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- ¾ cup granulated sugar, plus more for rolling cookies in
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup cocoa
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Cubes of Caramilk bar (about 4-5 bars)
- With electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars for 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add dry ingredients into the creamed mixture and stir to combine. Chill mixture until firm – 2-3 hours. (You can also leave it in the fridge overnight. It will be all melty in your hands if you don’t chill it.)
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350ºF. Place some dough in your hand (about a teaspoonful) and shape it around a chocolate chunk. Make them fairly small so the chocolate chunk isn’t too far away from the edges once it bakes.
- Roll the ball in a bowl of white sugar and place on greased cookie sheet. Do not press down, they flatten as they cook. Bake for 12-13 minutes.
Added this recipe into my Christmas baking. Never tried to make em before and the fam jam loved them. I was worried as I haven’t made surprise cookies before and this is an easy recipe for first timers. My son even helped me. Thank you for sharing.
Really only a teaspoonful of dough around the caramilk square? That seems like a small amount, no?
It is a small amount, but you want to bite into the caramilk piece on your first bite, and the cookies do spread in the oven. You can certainly use more dough though, they will still taste delicious and you won’t have to do as many, which sounds like a good idea :)
Mmmm, you can bring snacks this afternoon :)