Chocolate Caramel Treasures

My darling, my love, my treasure. My chocolately, caramelly treasure.

Okay, yeah. I know the name definitely is on the fruity side. But oh man, these truly are gems. I made these for a Christmas party that a bunch of my Spokanite friends hold annually (good company, crude gingerbread houses, quality secret santa gifts, always a blast). Really bummed I couldn't make it this year :/

Anywho, presented on a gold plastic plate from Fred Meyers, along with some mint-chocolate cupcakes and some tissue paper, the result wasn't too shabby...

..amirite?

The recipe for the caramel treasures came from the lovely Dana, of danatreat.com, who adapted it from Gourmet . I didn't make any changes, and the result was wonderful. These were so easy to make and so dang good. The chocolate dough produced a perfectly chewy and not-too-sweet cookie; the hazelnuts and caramel were a perfect accompaniment; and it didn't hurt that I was able to produce something that looked like it belonged in a magazine with my totes noobster skillz.

So here's the link to the recipe: http://danatreat.com/2009/12/chocolate-caramel-treasures/

I'd post it directly onto this entry but it won't let me paste... bummer. I'm going to have to find a way around that eventually.

Anyway, like I said, I wouldn't change a thing. But one tip: Don't forget to chill the dough! And this goes for all cookie recipes. It's a wonderful thing, really! Firms up the dough a bit, and it keeps your cookies from spreading out flat in the oven. If they're drop cookies like these, I like to shape them and put them on the pan before cooling. This way I don't have to wait so long for a mongo bowl of dough to chill, plus it makes for easier handling. But, you know what? It's really just up to your preference. Point is.. it'll all work out as long as they're chilled somehow before they go in the oven. Awesome!

And I don't mean to be rude and break food-blog code in my first posting, but I can't find the recipe I used for the chocolate mint cupcakes. The thing is, it really wasn't that great. The cupcakes just weren't anything special. However, in the future, I will keep all recipes on hand so that I can comment on changes I might make or just so you know not to use it! Sound like a plan? But really it wasn't a total bust. The mint icing I threw together was pretty tasty, and of course the Andes mints rocked socks.