Gear up for holiday baking with Cooking Channel. Your favorite chefs & Food People have opened their kitchens to share their best cookie recipes. From mini Red Velvet Whoopie Pies to Chuck’s Maple-Pecan Shortbread, we’ll keep you baking all season. Visit our All-Star Cookie Swap, then head over to FoodNetwork.com for great takes on holiday baking from Food Network chefs.
It’s pretty difficult to improve upon the chocolate chip cookie. Everyone has their favorite recipe — myself included — and you’ll often be hard-pressed to get someone else to try out a new one. But after creating this recipe for Cooking Channel’s holiday cookie swap, I must urge you to give this one a go. With rich dark chocolate chips, crumbled pretzels and pockets of chewy caramel, each bite seems to offer something tastier than the last. The cookie itself has crisp, golden edges and a chewy middle that remains blonde as it bakes.
*Note, these are large cookies, so you’ll only be able to accommodate 4 to 6 mounds on a standard baking pan. I recommend using two or more baking sheets. Be sure to save some of the mix-ins for placing on top of the dough pre-baking: It gives the cookie that studded, finished appearance that makes it perfect for holiday gifting.
Broken Pretzel and Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies
Active Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Yields: About 20 cookies
Ingredients
3/4 cup large broken pieces salted pretzel twists (about 10 pretzels)
20 soft caramels, each caramel quartered
1 cup dark chocolate chips
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, tightly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Reserve a few pieces of the broken pretzels, quartered caramels and chocolate chips. You’ll use these to stud the tops of the unbaked cookies. This makes the baked cookie look more attractive and yummy.
In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.
In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and both sugars until the mixture is fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the egg, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Mix until well incorporated.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until the ingredients just come together, making a soft, crumbly dough. Add the remaining pretzels, caramel pieces and chocolate chips to the dough; mix on lowest setting until these additions are evenly dispersed.
Portion dough into 24 pieces about the size of a large walnut and roll into balls. Place the dough balls on the lined cookie sheets about 3 inches apart. Press a few of the chocolate chips, caramel pieces and pretzel pieces into the tops of the cookie dough balls, or just use one of the toppings on each ball. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Cookies are done when they are still pale in the middle and the edges are golden brown. Don’t be tempted to over-bake these! The caramel will become hard and the pretzels will over-brown.
Remove cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheets for 10 to 12 minutes. (Better for cookies to cool on the baking sheets longer, so caramel can set, otherwise it sticks to the sheet and pulls the cookie apart if removed too soon.) Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Store cookies in a container that seals air-tight.
Tip: Make short work of quartering the caramels by employing the use of a large chef’s knife.
Get the Printable Recipe Here.
Heather Baird is an accomplished painter turned pastry artist and food blogger. She now primarily channels her creativity into assembling, styling and photographing the sweet works of art that fill her blog Sprinkle Bakes. She is the author of SprinkleBakes: Dessert Recipes to Inspire Your Inner Artist. Raised just outside the Great Smoky Mountains, her baking influences are inherently Southern. Although she was raised on apple stack cake and buttermilk pie, she also loves international confectionery and in her free time studies the art of patisserie. Heather lives in Knoxville, Tenn., with her husband, Mark, and two very mischievous pugs, Biscuit and Churro.
Recommeneded websites…
[...]Here are some of the sites we recommend to our visitors[...]……
Blogs ou should be reading…
[...]Here is a nice site You could Find Interesting that we Encourage You to visit[...]……
Related……
[...]just beneath, are numerous totally not related articles to ours, however, they are surely worth going over[...]……
You should experience…
After study several of the web sites on your own website now, and that i really like your technique of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark web site list and you will be checking back soon. Pls consider my web site likewise and let me know what you…
Check this out…
[...] that is the end of this article. Here you’ll find some sites that we think you’ll appreciate, just click the links over[...]……
Digg this…
While checking out DIGG today I found this…
Great website…
[...]we like to honor many other websites, even if they aren’t linked to us, by linking to them. Under are some webpages worth checking out[...]……
Cool sites…
[...]we came across a nice website that you might be interested in. Check it out[...]……
i prefer to…
A powerful share, I just given this onto a colleague who was doing slightly evaluation on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast because I found it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! However yeah Thnkx for spending the time t…
Recommeneded websites…
[...]Here are some of the sites we recommend for our visitors[...]……
Recent Blogroll Additions……
[...]usually posts some very interesting stuff like this. If you’re new to this site[...]……
Websites we think you should visit…
[...]although websites we backlink to below are considerably not related to ours, we feel they are actually worth a go through, so have a look[...]……
Its hard to find good help…
I am constantnly saying that its hard to procure quality help, but here is…
Great website…
[...]we like to honor many other internet sites on the web, even if they aren’t linked to us, by linking to them. Under are some webpages worth checking out[...]……
You should check this out…
[...] Wonderful story, reckoned we could combine a few unrelated data, nevertheless really worth taking a look, whoa did one learn about Mid East has got more problerms as well [...]……
News info…
I was reading the news and I saw this really interesting info…
Online Article……
[...]The information mentioned in the article are some of the best available [...]……
Websites worth visiting…
[...]here are some links to sites that we link to because we think they are worth visiting[...]……
Blogs ou should be reading…
[...]Here is a Great Blog You Might Find Interesting that we Encourage You[...]……
Websites you should visit…
[...]beneath you’ll find the link to some sites that we think you should visit[...]……
You should check this out…
[...] Wonderful story, reckoned we could combine a few unrelated data, nevertheless really worth taking a look, whoa did one learn about Mid East has got more problerms as well [...]……
Gift Blogger…
[Ö] I think there could become a several duplicates, but an exceedingly helpful record! I have tweeted this. Lots of thanks for sharing! [Ö]…
Related……
[...]just beneath, are numerous totally not related bogs to ours, however, they are surely worth going over[...]……
Sites we Like……
[...] Every once in a while we choose blogs that we read. Listed below are the latest sites that we choose [...]……
Great website…
[...]we like to honor many other internet sites on the web, even if they aren’t linked to us, by linking to them. Under are some webpages worth checking out[...]……
Miami Apartment Locator…
[…] My spouse and i have already been now delighted that Albert could carry out his reports as a result of the concepts he had through your website. It really is from time to time perplexing to simply usually be gifting away ways which many people coul…
Awesome website…
[...]the time to read or visit the content or sites we have linked to below the[...]……
Dreary Day…
It was a dreary day here yesterday, so I just took to piddeling around on the internet and realized…
Read was interesting, stay in touch……
[...]please visit the sites we follow, including this one, as it represents our picks from the web[...]……
Visitor recommendations…
[...]one of our visitors recently recommended the following website[...]……
Awesome website…
[...]the time to read or visit the content or sites we have linked to below the[...]……
Bored at work…
I like to look in various places on the internet, often I will just go to Digg and read and check stuff out…
Gems form the internet…
[...]very few websites that happen to be detailed below, from our point of view are undoubtedly well worth checking out[...]……
Recommeneded websites…
[...]Here are some of the sites we recommend for our visitors[...]……
Cool sites…
[...]I came across a nice website that you might enjoy. Take a look if you want[...]……
Read was interesting, stay in touch……
[...]please visit the sites we follow, including this one, as it represents our picks from the web[...]……
Sources…
[...]check below, are some totally unrelated websites to ours, however, they are most trustworthy sources that we use[...]……
Websites we think you should visit…
[...]although websites we backlink to below are considerably not related to ours, we feel they are actually worth a go through, so have a look[...]……
Digg this…
While checking out DIGG today I found this…
Its hard to find good help…
I am forever saying that its difficult to procure quality help, but here is…
Tumblr article…
I saw a writer talking about this on Tumblr and it linked to…
Wikia…
Wika linked to this website…
Gems form the internet…
[...]very few websites that happen to be detailed below, from our point of view are undoubtedly well worth checking out[...]……