I am not really much of a baker. Baking involves things like measuring and following recipes because it is a matter of chemistry and science, what with the flour and the baking powder and the baking soda. Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard.
But for part of a holiday present I wanted to make some kind of cookies involving caramel, and the lovely Betsy forwarded me this recipe. We consulted back and forth a bit, mostly about the fact that the instructions for the caramel involved wearing a long sleeve shirt and protective eyewear.
Scary, right? I thought so too.
However, I bet you didn’t know this about me, but I am quite brave. I really live on the edge. For instance, sometimes I cross the street on a solid hand. So I decided to give the caramel a go. But first, I had to make the cookies:
Then I put on my long sleeves in preparation for the caramel:
No eye wear, though. Like I said, brave.
The recipe calls for light corn syrup, but my local grocery store didn’t have that, so I bought this instead:
And then I put it all in the pan and started stirring:
Nothing happened for a while, and I was getting pretty annoyed because I’m an impatient person and I wanted to see some action in that pan. But then things started bubbling:
And then everything happened all at once and I was running around grabbing cream and stirring and looking at my laptop and freaking out and then I poured the warm cream in and the whole thing bubbled like crazy and I would’ve taken a picture but I was scared out of my mind because I didn’t have protective eye wear on.
Finally, after all that, there were these:
Pretty good, right? I think they’re okay. The cookies aren’t the best peanut butter cookies I’ve ever had (probably because I again didn’t follow the recipe and used natural peanut butter) but the caramel is AWESOME, if I do say so myself. However, I had a ton leftover and I didn’t know what to do with it so I ate like half poured it onto a sheet pan in hopes of making brittle:
Yeah. Apparently that’s not how you make brittle, because it didn’t harden. Maybe I’ll work on that one next.
Wow. I’d still be crying if I was hoping for brittle but instead just had caramel/peanut mess.
Crying or licking.
I had no idea all of that was happening.
why didn’t you just pour it over ice cream? man, i’m FULL of good ideas. you should have called me.
glad they turned out well! see, baking isn’t that scary.
i have tons of dulce de leche left from mine. i dont’ know what to do with it. i’ll probably jsut end up eating it by the spoonful.
mine ended fan-fricking-tastic though. bring one friday and we can taste test.
Still looks PERFECT to me!!
Mmmmm, I wish I could lick the screen successfully to get a taste of that!
You should always use protection! You were lucky this time, but don’t live on the edge so much
those look absolutely delish.
Wow. That looks intense. And delicious.
These look delicious and impressive. I love how different they are.
greatness! i love peanut brittle so i feel for you :<
You should totally bring me one of those peanut butter cookies at TJ. I work food demo (Leo)
Also, Corn syrup doesn’t harden because the shape of the molecule prevents it from crystallizing. But goddamn if that’s not gonna be delicious on ice cream.
Those look great! Originally I thought you were going to make the cookies with the hershey kisses in the middle, but that looks sooooo much better!
I’ve never seen a cookie like that before, great idea!!
Cookie with caramel and nuts on top? I am in love. Those look really good. So does the leftover caramel. Like Ben, I would have just started licking.