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Bakery soft chocolate chip cookies are stuffed with gooey soft caramel candies and baked to perfection. These chocolate chunk caramel stuffed cookies are quite possibly the best cookies for a bit of indulgence.
Pure Decadence: Caramel Stuffed Cookies
Have you noticed that when you stuff ingredients inside other food items, it makes it into the most delicious thing, ever? Stuffing pepperoni pizza ingredients into dough balls, stuffing peppers, stuffing artichokes, and now caramel stuffed cookies.
The base of these caramel stuffed cookies are the softest, most tender, bakery-style chocolate chunk cookie. Stuffed between the cookies are soft, sea salt caramel candies that when baked, melt and bake together with the chocolate chunk cookies resulting in the most decadent treat that you’ll have coming out of your oven. When you break into these soft cookies, the caramel center is so gooey and irresistible. Sweet and salty flavors combined with the rich dark chocolate chunks make this caramel stuffed cookie absolutely decadent.
Recipe Tips and Variations
- Use the right caramel candies. This is by far one of the most important steps to yield success. You must use a soft caramel candy otherwise the caramel in the center will be stiff. My best suggestion is to use a soft caramel candy like the Trader Joe’s sea salt caramels or Werther’s soft caramels. I tried using Kraft caramels and they didn’t melt as well and were rather stiff after allowing the cookies to cool.
- The second most important step is allowing the cookies to cool before breaking them apart and/or eating. You need the caramels to set up just a bit. If you break the cookies open too soon, everything will just disintegrate, and more importantly, you could burn yourself with that hot caramel center!
- If you prefer chocolate chips to chocolate chunks, you can make a swap for those. You can even use your favorite chocolate variation (dark chocolate, semi-sweet, etc.).
Storage, Freezing, and Reheating Instructions
Allow the cookies to cool then store them in an airtight container with a slice of white bread for up to 5 days. The slice of white bread will keep the cookies soft and tender.
To freeze the cookies: if you are freezing the cookie dough before baking, form the cookie balls and freeze on the baking sheet. Once frozen, remove the cookie dough and place into a zippered freezer bag. To bake, bake from frozen at 350 degrees Fahrenheit and add 2-4 more minutes of additional bake time, or until cookies are baked through and caramel has melted.
If you are freezing baked cookies, allow the cookies to cool then freeze them in a zippered freezer bag. To reheat, bake from frozen in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until cookies are warmed through and caramel has melted.
Chocolate Chunk Caramel Stuffed Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (341 g) unsalted butter
- 1 ½ cup (330 g) dark brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 cups (250 g) bread flour, you may use AP flour instead if you don’t have it on hand
- 4 teaspoons cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups (255 g) chocolate chunks
- ½ cup (88 g) dark chocolate, finely chopped
- 18 soft caramel candies, cut in half to give you 36
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 °F (177 °C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- In a large bowl, add flours, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Then add in the eggs and vanilla extract and beat for 2 more minutes.
- Slowly add in the flour mixture and mix until all combined and well-incorporated.
- Using a spatula, fold in the chocolate chunks and finely chopped dark chocolate.
- Take a scoop of cookie dough, roll it into a ball, then using your thumb, press into the center, put the caramel candy in the center, then re-roll the ball to cover the caramel candy. Repeat until all dough has been used up.
- Bake for 11-13 minutes. They will look super soft but they continue cooking after you remove them from the oven.
- Let cool on baking sheet COMPLETELY before you move them to a wire rack. If you move them too soon, they're too delicate so they'll break and the caramel will ooze out from beneath the cookie.
- Store in an airtight container.
Notes
Nutrition
Photographs by Meg McKeehan Photography
These…oh my goodness…these might be the first cookies I’ve bitten into and said…these are the best! I wasn’t sure how they’d turn out after reading some of the comments…but I’m glad I made these now. Definitely going to be my go to cookie recipe. My husband will be asking for these constantly. Thank you!!!
I’ve made these cookies twice following the recipe (I’ve even used caramels by Trader Joe’s!. Lol), and they came out perfectly each time! I’ll continue to make them over and over again since my friends love them<3 Thank you so much for such a yummy recipe!
When I baked these cookies I used 4 cups AP flour, and all seemed well with the caramel in the middle and looked great, but they taste like flour and have almost a raw biscuit taste… I am sure I followed the recipe correctly, but I don’t know why they turned out the way they did! And I baked almost 100, seems a shame to waste!
I attempted to make these today. The dough was extremely sticky and wet so I added more flour. Then they ended up baking like scones. I added another stick of butter and more sugar and still, no dice. I wanted to love this recipe but somehow, it wasn’t meant to be for me. :-(
Made these cookies today! They are so yummy!
I followed the recipe and added some walnuts as well.
Although they look nothing like your pictures, as I used all AP flour, not sure if that is the reasoning. but they are tasty.
My dough is gooey, there’s no possible way to roll a ball!!?? Help!!:)
It sounds like you need to add a little bit more flour.
I love these cookies. Made them twice in the last week due to a high volume of requests :) thank you for sharing!
i loved these cookies and everyone who ate them! they stayed thick but were still great, ill make them again and again :-)
What am I doing wrong? The cookie itself comes out fine; I just can’t get the carmel thing to melt in the middle. It melts a little bit, but then the rest of it isn’t quit melted, but soft and a little chewy. Can you help me? I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.
What type of caramel are you using? It might help, if the caramel is too thick, to maybe pound it out flat a little bit before stuffing it in the cookie.
This recipe did not work well for me. I used AP flour instead of bread flour, and I left out the chocolate chunks. But the outcome was thick and grainy, not thin and gooey like the photos. I also tried once with gluten-free flood, and I tried both 350 and 325 degrees on different batches.
i haven’t try it yet but i was wondering if it is true is this fake or true im trying to see if this is because i want to use this repice for my step mom she love carmel and cookies so if this does not work i will write more things about trhis site . thank you and have a nice day
I just made these cookies and they are too cake like and had many steps for the end results. I’m an experienced cook but never added corn starch to a cookie before.