Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies

    My new favorite cookie: Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk: Chocolatey, Chewy and Salty. We'll have these baking next week for the month of April in our bakery. I think they would make a wonderful cookie gift for someone who likes a little old-fashioned and a little gourmet in their cookies.

I've been craving these cookies for awhile now. I love chocolate, I love sweets, I love salt. I know salt does not have a healthy sound to it with all the talk of "too much salt is bad for your blood pressure" but I do love salt. Combine salt with my OTHER favorite flavor of Sugar and then add chocolate and something chewy ( caramel ) well, you've just tasted one of my new favorite cookies. I recently said that the blueberry cobbler cookies we were baking at Country Cupboard Cookies in March was my favorite, but well, it's a new month and this cookie, Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk is my Favorite.

We baked this cookie using our original Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, everyone has a favorite, just be sure to use butter and the best chocolate you have. We use Barry Callebaut chocolate chunks, a nice semi-sweet chocolate here in our bakery, but any high quality chocolate will work. Then we added bits of Caramel. We used caramel bits from CK products, but you could caramel bits from the grocery store. One thing I learned is not to use large sizes of caramel, you want small pieces, no larger than a chocolate chip. This way the chewiness is not over-whelming and you won't spend all your time chewing and not enjoying the rest of the cookie! Press down the cookie slightly before baking and then sprinkle a nice Sea Salt over the cookie. Bake as usual. I found that a lot of the salt does dissolve when you bake so I added a very slight sprinkle after they came out of the oven. Don't overdo the salt, just a surprise flavor while you are enjoying the caramel and chocolate!