Chocolate Surprise Cookies

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa (I used the Special Dark Cocoa.)

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup sugar

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup butter, softened

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 cup chopped pecans

48 Rolo Caramel candies

1 Tb sugar

In small bowl, combine flour, cocoa and baking soda; blend well.  In large bowl, beat 1 cup sugar, brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and eggs; beat well.  Add flour mixture; blend well.  Stir in ½ cup pecans.

Heat oven to 375F.  For each cookie, with floured hands shape about 1 tablespoon dough around 1 caramel candy, covering completely.  (I usually make a cookie dough ball, make a thumbprint in the middle, then place the Rolo where my thumb was, and wrap the dough around to close it up completely.  If it’s a little too sticky to handle, try refrigerating it for about 20-30 minutes.)

In small bowl, combine remaining ½ cup pecans and 1 tablespoon sugar.  Press top of each ball into pecan mixture and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375F for 7-10 minutes or until set and slightly cracked.  Cook 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets and cool completely on a wire rack.  Enjoy!  (If all that chocolate, caramel, and pecans aren’t enough for you, you can melt some vanilla chips and drizzle that on top too.  But they’re pretty darn good without it!)

To any average Joe, they look just like Chocolate Crinkle cookies, but when you bite in you’ll find a delicious caramel filling!

(This recipe comes from here:  Pillsbury: Best of the Bake-Off Cookbook.  It’s fabulous!)

They are so good, that if I didn’t give some away, I’d probably go into a chocolate induced coma so I made a little box and gave some away.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Driftwood City from Alisa Burke.  I wonder if I could find enough driftwood on Lake Michigan?

Painted Parasol Tutorial, also from Alisa Burke.  Absolutely gorgeous!

How to marble cookies from Sweetopia on Bake at 350.  LOVE this technique…wonder if I need some decorated cookies anytime soon?

Pencil vs. Camera set from Ben Heine on Flickr.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Just make the cookies following the instructions.  Immediately after scooping them onto your parchment paper (I used a cookie scoop for this) use the back of the cookie scoop to make a little indent.  This squishes it just enough to allow a small crater, perfect for little jelly beans.  All I had on hand were jelly beans, though next time I’d probably do the little Cadbury chocolate eggs, then you’d have peanut butter AND chocolate (plus of course a few Reeses peanut butter eggs for my husband)!  If you have a hard time getting them to stick, use a little peanut butter and glue to the cookie.  (Peanut butter works to glue your tongue to the roof of your mouth and it also works well as edible glue!)  Hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter weekend!  See you tomorrow for Tutorial Tuesday!

The first thing I decided to make was dipped Oreos, but I wanted to make it easy to decorate them.  I made royal icing flowers the night before.  They were super easy and turned out really well!  They were so tiny and cute!

Royal Icing Using Meringue Powder:

4 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons meringue powder

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 – 3/4 cup warm water

Mix all ingredients in an electric blender and beat until stiff peaks form.  Put into icing bags and use various tips to make different shaped icing designs.  I spread out a sheet of parchment paper and just went to town making flowers!  It made soooooo much that I just put the leftovers in a bag to use later.  I think that as long as they are kept dry they will last quite a while!

The next day, I used some Wilton Candy melts and dipped half the Oreo’s in the melted white candy melts and placed upright on the parchment.  I immediately added one little flower to each.

Let set, harden, and you’re good to go!  Yum!  (Hint:  The tray that they are on is just my small cutting board, covered in white cardstock and an organza ribbon tied around it.  I left all the beautiful serving trays in storage when we moved for my husband to attend grad. school.  Our current apartment is too small for all of it so I just made do with what I had!)