Just when I was running out of ideas, inspiration struck! These are my own creation and taste great. The caramel center is easy to make. These cookies look more difficult than they actually are and you would surely impress your friends by making them these.  I was a little worried because I am usually very messy when it comes to baking and flour alone ends up everywhere…  However, these weren’t that hard to make and I didn’t make a sticky mess out of the caramel! I’ll call that a big success right there.

Even though these are basically sugar cookie crusts, they taste so chocolatey and rich you will think that they are a brownie. They turned out so well and they look so cute! If you’re interested in making classic Chocolate Turtles, I have a recipe for that too!

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Walnut Turtle Cookies

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder
  • 1 Cup Unsalted Butter (Softened)
  • 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
  • 1 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1 Egg
  • 11 oz Bag of Carmel Squares
  • 1/4 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
  • 1/4 Cup Chopped Walnuts
  • 1/4 Cup Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
  • 1 Teaspoon Vegetable Shortening

Directions:

1.Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. For this recipe you will be baking the cookies in a mini cupcake pan so set one aside.

2. In a medium size bowl, stir together the dry ingredients: the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside for later.

3. In a large bowl or the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Once combined, add in the egg, mixing well after the addition. You may need to scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally to ensure that everything is mixed together well. Mix in the vanilla as well.

4. Gradually add in the dry ingredients so that the cookie dough forms. The dough will remain slightly sticky and will not form a ball like cutout sugar cookie batter does.

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5. Roll the dough into balls about 3/4 inch in diameter. Place one into each spot of the mini muffin pan. Press down so that the ball fills the bottom. Using your thumb, or the rounded back-end of a spatula (I use a wisk) make the indentation for each cookie.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minute or until the tops of the cookies are firm to the touch. Once you remove the pan from the oven, immediately recreate the indentation in each cookie. As they bake the indentation sort of disappears in most of them. Allow cookies to cool for 2 minutes in the pan before removing to finish cooling on a wire rack.

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7. In a medium-sized sauce pan, melt the unwrapped caramel squares and the heavy whipping cream together. Once cooled, fill each cookie indentation. Be careful because the caramel will be HOT! I let the caramel sit for a few minutes (not long enough to harden) and then filled a plastic piping bag. If you do try this method, wrap the bag in towel before you begin to pipe or you will burn your hand. You can also just use a spoon to fill each cookie.

8. Before the caramel hardens up on the cookies, press chopped walnuts into the tops of each. I usually do caramel for about 10 cookies, then add the walnuts before continuing with the caramel. That way the walnuts really stick.

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9. Once the walnuts and caramel are on each cookie, melt the chocolate chips and the shortening together in the microwave for a bout a minute stirring after about 30 seconds.  Once the chocolate has melted drizzle it over the cookies.

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Make sure that the caramel  in the cookies has been completely cooled before you try to eat them. It shouldnt take very long. My cookies seem cool after 10 minutes or by the time I finished with the chocolate!

Happy Baking!