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

Favorite Christmas Cookie Recipes

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

  • jenny allen

    I made these tonight and the mix could be rolled as easy as pulling hens teeth , nice flat cookies , haven,t tried them yet

  • Nari

    I made these the other day and they came out great! I don’t know if my cookies came out as chewy because my oven was hotter than i thought- about 25 degrees hotter. If I wanted to have more of a chewy consistency, would I lower my oven temp and bake longer? Also, could I freeze the balls ahead of time? When I am ready to bake them, would I bring the balls back to room temp, roll in powder sugar than bake?

    • Jaclyn

      Jaclyn Bell

      If you want chewier cookies you can try using half unbleached flour or bread flour (the rest all-purpose). You can increase the bake time (and yes maybe reduce the temp slightly if your oven cooks hot) and maybe reduce the butter by a Tbsp. Some people also like to add a few tsp cornstarch for chewiness and use more brown sugar in place of some white. And yes I imagine they would freeze fine and that is what I would do just as you said, bring them to room temp (or close) before baking then roll in powdered sugar and bake. Hope that helps!

  • la fourmi ElĂ©

    Tested and approved!! without caramel, simple chocolate and they are really good. Thanks for sharing!

  • Jessica

    I made these over the weekend and O. M. G. Hubby said they are the best cookie I ever baked. Brought some into the office, and they concur. I used Rolos in the middle and they did stay nicely soft, I would definitely recommend! Thanks for such a delicious “keeper” recipe!

    • Jaclyn

      Jaclyn Bell

      That’s awesome to hear Jessica! I’m so glad you and your husband enjoyed these! Thanks for your comment!

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  • Elex

    I just started pursuing my culinary degree in pastry and baking. This week is cookie week, and today was our “cookie competition”. Out of 14 competitors I placed third!!!! Thank you so much Jaclyn for your wonderful recipe and beautiful blog! I can’t wait to try your other recipes for future competitions! Thanks again!

    stay sweet
    Elex

    ***make sure you serve these hot!!!

    • Jaclyn

      Jaclyn Bell

      Elex ~ that is awesome that you took third! Congrats! Also that’s great you are getting a culinary degree (I wish I had one =). I hope you continue to enjoy what you try and love cooking and baking. Thanks for your kind comment!

  • Kelly

    Chocolate crinkle cookies are my favoritist cookie in the WHOLE WORLD. So this looks like heaven!

    Pinned it so I remember to try it!

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