Caramel Nut Cookies

Name: Caramel Nut Cookies
Yield: Dozens and Dozens!
Ingredients: 1 cup soft shortening; 2 cups dark brown sugar, sifted and packed; 2 eggs; 1 tsp vanilla; 3 ½ cups sifted flour; ½ tsp salt; 1 tsp soda; 1 cup chopped nuts

January 16, 2019 |

My Cookies by Bess cookie book was sitting on my kitchen counter, open to page 15. At the top of the page was Caramel Nut Cookies. As I was cleaning up my kitchen I looked down and saw this recipe and decided to make these cookies. Caramel Nut Cookies, just the name makes them sound good!

As I read over the recipe, I was surprised to see it is a refrigerator cookie recipe. I was expecting a molded or shaped cookie with a piece of candy on top, or a drop cookie with bits of caramel mixed in. Much to my surprise, the recipe for Caramel Nut Cookies makes it’s own caramel and the cookies taste just like the title says, caramel and nut!

I rate this cookie 2-stars for cookie difficulty. This is how I’ve rating all refrigerator cookies so far. While it was easy to mix the dough together and easy to form into rolls for slicing, these steps along with the sifting of the dark brown sugar make it a 2-star recipe. The only change I made to this recipe was to substitute butter for shortening.

Once I pulled all my ingredients together, I got started sifting the dark brown sugar.

I’ve sifted brown sugar a few times before. I’ve asked myself each time why this is done, so this time I decided to Google it. Believe it or not, the only reason I found for sifting brown sugar was to ensure the hard pieces are found and removed. It’s a chore to sift brown sugar with my sifter and I’m not sure if I ever get the sugar crystals out of the sifter after I’m done. So if the only reason is to find the hard pieces (if there are any!), then I think I will skip this step next time 🙂

The recipe calls for chopped nuts, but once again doesn’t specify which nut to use. I decided on pecans because I think pecans add a nice and rich flavor with the caramel. Looking at this dough reminds me of the Pecan Maple Cookies recipe. The finished cookies look a like too. Both are made with brown sugar and pecans…YUM!

Next, I started shaping the dough into rolls. The dough was a perfect consistency, no extra flour needed!

I shaped the dough into 1 inch in diameter rolls, rolled them up in wax paper, and stuck them into the refrigerator to chill.

Refrigerator cookies provide a break in the baking process. I chilled the rolls for several hours, so I was able to get a few errands done and even read a little of my new book!

After finishing all my errands, I pulled one roll out of the refrigerator at a time and began slicing the cookies. As always, I baked a couple cookies first just to see how much they spread and how long to bake them.

The cookies spread a bit while baking, but I was still able to place a good amount of cookies on each cookie sheet!

The cookies puffed up a bit while baking, but then flattened out again once they came out of the oven and cooled down. I baked them for 8 minutes. Any longer and the cookies got too brown and crunchy for me. I much prefer a soft versus hard cookie. If you like a more crunchy cookie, bake these for he full 10 minutes.

Prior to baking, I lightly greased the cookie sheets which worked well. Removing the cookies from the cookie sheets was easy. None of the cookies broke when removing them from the cookie sheet and there were hardly any crumbs left behind.

I was excited to try the cookies to see if they tasted like caramel. Funny, I wish I had a picture of my face when I tried one. I remember smiling, shaking my head and saying, “Yep, they taste like caramel!” Then I popped a couple more in my mouth ?

The finished cookies are a bit crunchy. They taste caramelly and nutty. The pecans are perfect with the caramel, although walnuts would be awesome as well!

Caramel Nut Cookies are a perfect refrigerator cookie that boasts great caramel flavors! The recipe makes dozens and dozens of cookies. You can make them all in one day or make them as you need/want them. Everyone will love Caramel Nut Cookies!

XXOO,

Janet

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