Sunday, November 11, 2012

Turtle Cookies

Don't be fooled by my lack of blogging, I still have been baking quite a bit lately.  We practically have a bakery in our kitchen with all the baking that goes on in this apartment.  I took advantage of my time off work on Friday and spent the day with Erikka catching up on life, eating tons of chocolate and baking these delicious cookies.  I stumbled across this little gem of a recipe thanks to Pinterest.  Originally from America's Test Kitchen, I adapted this recipe from The Kitchen is My Playground.


Cookie Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
8 Tbsp. butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg, separated, and 1 additional egg white
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans

Filling
14 caramels
3 Tbsp. heavy cream
1/4 cup chocolate chips for drizzle 
1 tsp. shortening
   

 
Combine the flour, cocoa powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.
 
Beat together butter and sugar on medium speed in an electric mixer.

Once combined, mix in the egg yolk, milk and vanilla.

With the mixer on a low speed, add in the flour mixture. 

Cover the dough and refrigerate for one hour.

 Right before the hour is up, whisk the egg whites in one bowl and place the chopped pecans in a separate bowl.

Roll dough into balls (about one inch), dip in egg whites followed by the pecans and place on greased baking pan.

Make an indent in the center of each dough ball, about 1/2 teaspoon in size.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.


 While the cookies are baking, melt the caramels and heavy cream in the microwave for about 1 to 2 minutes.  

Once the cookies are done baking, remove them from the oven and fill the indentations with about 1/2 teaspoon of caramel.  You maybe need to repress the indentations on some cookies before filling them with the caramel.


Remove cookies from the pan and let them cool. 

Melt together the chocolate chips and shortening.  Pour the melted chocolate into a zip lock bag, snip the corner and drizzle the chocolate over the cookies.  Use as much or as little chocolate as you wish!