Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Published November 26, 2012. Updated April 19, 2024

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Salted Caramel Chocolate Crinkle Cookies stuffed with a layer of decadent chewy caramel and finished with a blizzard of powdered sugar! Talk about decadent holiday cookie—everyone will be asking you about these. 

Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Hello Christmas Cookie Season!! I’m obsessed with cookies so this gives me one more reason to love the holidays. I created this recipe to be a no refrigeration necessary recipe. A lot of chocolate crinkle cookie recipes require that the dough be refrigerated 2 – 4 hours before baking, I don’t have time for that. Mostly I just don’t have the patience for that especially when I know what awaits me.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I love the idea of of biting into what you think is a standard chocolate crinkle cookie, with chewy chocolate dough and sweet dusted powered sugar, only to delightfully discover a melty bomb of salted caramel hidden in the middle! It’s a huge hit for a Christmas cookie exchange because it’s different from the usual suspects, and always a pleasant surprise.

If you prefer you can omit the coarse sea salt from the recipe if you are not a fan of salted caramel. I personally am unequivocally in love with the addition. These taste like caramel brownies in cookie form. They are intensely delicious! If you are baking them for someone else you’ll have a hard time wanting to gift them after all. If you wanted to go all out with these cookies you could even toss in some semi-sweet chocolate chips and toasted nuts.  Enjoy!

Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

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Do you need to refresh your Christmas Cookie recipe stash? Traditions are one of the best parts of the holiday season, but if you’ve been making the same Christmas cookies for a decade… it’s time for some new recipes. Here are a bunch of my favorite Christmas cookies!

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5 from 4 votes

Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies stuffed with a layer of decadent chewy caramel and finished with a blizzard of powdered sugar! Talk about decadent holiday cookie!
Servings: 24
Prep20 minutes
Cook22 minutes
Ready in: 42 minutes

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, set aside. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment, whip together butter, granulated sugar and light-brown sugar on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, stirring after each addition until combine. Mix in vanilla. With mixer set on low speed, slowly add in dry ingredients and mix just until combine.
  • Scoop dough out 2 tbsp at a time and roll into a ball. Press one caramel into the center, sprinkle top of caramel with a small pinch of coarse sea salt then fold cookie dough around caramel and salt (make sure the caramel is fully covered with dough around all sides). Shape into a ball once more then roll in powdered sugar*. Align cookies on Silpat lined or buttered cookie sheets and bake in preheated oven 11 - 13 minutes. Allow to cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool (note that the caramel will set after it cools, I liked these cookies best warm for soft gooey caramel). Store in an airtight container.
  • *I gave my cookies a generous coating of the powdered sugar before baking, but when they baked a lot of the powdered sugar baked and dissolved into the cookie anyway. So I found you can coat the top again with powdered sugar after baking (which is not pictured) to get a prettier cookie. If doing so roll in powdered sugar once before baking (doesn't need to be generously), then bake them and allow to cool and dip the tops of cookies in a fresh batch of powdered sugar (so there is no cross contamination) and shake off some of the excess. If you want to do it that way I would recommend using 1/2 cup powdered sugar for rolling before baking and reserve 1/4 cup in a separate bowl to dip and coat the tops after baking.
  • Recipe Source: Cooking Classy

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120 Comments

  • Gigi

    I make these cookies about once a month. They are definitely a fan favourite, for my family, for work, for parties. I would recommend using a Rolo or something similar. I once used those little caramel squares that you can purchase individually wrapped, but they re-hardened after baking and made for a too-chewy cookie.

  • I Love to Bake

    This recipe is a keeper! Jaclyn, thank you so much for sharing. You are correct–these cookies are delicious served warm while the caramel is soft. So good! While the cookies were cooling on the rack, I inserted a tiny red cinnamon heart in the center of each. Just a little touch for Valentine’s Day.

  • SBG

    Okay, homemade caramels: not advised! I got caramel, chocolate soup instead of cookies. I scraped the batter into a small pan, added the remainder of the unbaked dough, tucked in some of the caramels and baked. Salted caramel brownie loaf…could have had a worse back-up plan. ;)

  • SBG

    I made my own caramels and suspect they’ll melt right into the cookies, but it’ll be a delicious failure if so! :)

  • Tamara Scribner

    I made your recipe during the holidays and they were simply magical! By far the best cookies I have ever had. Thanks so much for sharing!

  • Cindy Neuhaus

    I’ve made these twice now & they’re absolutely outstanding—thanks for the delicious recipe! I do refrigerate the dough a bit just to make easier to work with, and use as little dough as I can to cover the caramel so I get more cookies :)