Indulge in the ultimate treat with our Caramel Stuffed Cookies – a recipe designed for big, soft, and perfectly chewy cookies. Each bite offers a delightful surprise: a generous swirl of M&M’s and rich chocolate chips, all culminating in an exquisitely gooey caramel center. These aren’t just cookies; they’re an experience, a treat so utterly satisfying you’ll be eager to bake them again and again!

Mastering Caramel Stuffed Cookies: A Bakery-Style Delight

Prepare yourself for cookies that are truly loaded with everything wonderful! When it comes to decadent desserts, we believe more is definitely more. Our Caramel Stuffed Cookies are crafted to be incredibly soft and chewy, brimming with generous amounts of premium chocolate, vibrant M&M’s®, and, of course, that luscious, gooey caramel heart. For those who adore a sophisticated twist, a delicate sprinkle of flaky sea salt on top of these warm cookies elevates the experience to a salted caramel dream, providing the perfect finishing touch to an already perfect treat.

Despite their impressive appearance and rich flavor, these cookies are surprisingly simple to prepare. The entire dough comes together beautifully in just one bowl, requiring only a wooden spoon or spatula for mixing – no fancy equipment needed! The most crucial step, however, is the chilling time. The dough absolutely benefits from resting in the fridge for about an hour before baking. This seemingly small detail makes a significant difference in the final texture and prevents spreading, ensuring your Caramel Stuffed Cookies are thick, chewy, and hold their delightful caramel filling perfectly. We’ll delve deeper into the importance of chilling below!

The Science of Butter: The Secret to Perfect Chewy Cookies

Butter is the foundational ingredient that gives our Caramel Stuffed Cookies their rich flavor and tender texture. While any high-quality butter will work, it’s absolutely crucial to use real butter – never margarine or any artificial butter substitutes. These alternatives contain different fat and water ratios that will prevent the cookies from baking correctly and will significantly compromise their taste and texture, leading to a disappointing result.

We specifically recommend using unsalted butter for this recipe, even if you’re aiming for a salted caramel flavor profile. The reason is simple: control. The salt content in salted butter can vary widely between brands, making it incredibly difficult to accurately manage the amount of salt in your cookie dough. By using unsalted butter, you can precisely measure and add the exact amount of salt needed, preventing an overly salty outcome and ensuring the perfect balance of flavors.

A key technique for these cookies involves melting the butter. Melted butter isn’t just about ease of mixing; it’s fundamental to achieving that signature ultra-chewy texture. When butter is melted, its water content is released, which interacts differently with the flour compared to softened butter, creating a more dense and chewy crumb. However, the most critical tip here is to **let the melted butter cool completely back to room temperature** before combining it with the sugars. Adding sugars to hot or even warm butter will cause the sugars to melt prematurely. This leads to a greasy dough that results in cookies that spread too much, becoming thin and flat rather than thick and chewy. Patience in this step is truly a virtue!

Elevating Your Cookies: The Perfect Mix-Ins for Flavor and Texture

What truly sets our Caramel Stuffed Cookies apart are the carefully selected mix-ins, each contributing to an explosion of flavor and delightful textures. Here’s a closer look at what makes these cookies so special:

• Caramel Selection: The Heart of the Cookie: The star of these cookies is undoubtedly the gooey caramel center. Our top recommendation for an accessible and delicious caramel is Werther’s® Soft Caramels (be sure to choose the “soft” variety, not the original hard candies). These caramels have a wonderfully rich flavor, a pliable texture that integrates seamlessly into the dough, and melt beautifully to create that irresistible molten core. When selecting your caramels, always ensure they are fresh, soft, and pliable. Old, stale, or hard caramels will not melt correctly, resulting in a less-than-perfect gooey center. Quality caramel is key to a truly decadent stuffed cookie.
• Plenty of Chocolate: A Rich & Balanced Sweetness: No cookie is complete without chocolate, and these Caramel Stuffed Cookies are loaded! For superior taste and melt, we highly recommend using high-quality chocolate chips such as Ghirardelli® or Guittard®. Their size, rich flavor, and consistent quality make a noticeable difference in the final product. While we personally prefer milk chocolate for its creamy sweetness that perfectly complements the caramel, feel free to use your favorite type! Semi-sweet, dark, or even white chocolate chips would also be fantastic additions, allowing you to customize the flavor profile to your liking.
• M&M’s® for Fun and Crunch: Adding M&M’s® brings a pop of color, an extra layer of chocolatey goodness, and a delightful textural contrast. The candy shell provides a slight crunch that contrasts beautifully with the soft cookie and gooey caramel. You can use any variety of M&M’s® that your heart desires! Our family’s absolute favorite are peanut butter M&M’s®, as the combination of chocolate, peanut butter, and caramel creates an incredibly harmonious and indulgent flavor trio. Other excellent choices include peanut M&M’s®, classic plain milk chocolate, mini M&M’s®, pretzel, or crispy varieties. If M&M’s® aren’t your preference, simply substitute them with an equal amount of extra chocolate chips for an even more intensely chocolatey experience.

The Crucial Art of Chilling: Why Patience Leads to Perfection

We understand that waiting for cookie dough to chill can feel like an inconvenience, especially when you’re craving these magnificent Caramel Stuffed Cookies right now! However, we cannot emphasize enough how absolutely vital chilling this dough is for achieving the perfect result. Think of it like marinating meat – the waiting period allows flavors to develop and textures to transform, making the final product infinitely better. Here are several compelling reasons why chilling your cookie dough is non-negotiable for these particular cookies:

• The Dough Becomes More Flavorful: As the cookie dough rests in the fridge, the dry ingredients (flour, sugar) have ample time to fully absorb the liquid ingredients (butter, eggs, vanilla). This hydration process allows the flavors to meld and intensify, resulting in cookies with a deeper, richer, and more complex taste. It’s like a flavor marinade for your cookies!
• Prevents Spreading for Thicker Cookies: Since this recipe uses melted butter, the fat in the dough is initially in a liquid state. If the dough were baked immediately, the melted butter would cause the cookies to spread excessively, resulting in thin, flat, and overly crispy cookies. Chilling the dough allows the fat (butter) to re-solidify. When the butter is solid, it melts more slowly in the oven, giving the cookie structure time to set before it spreads too much. **The longer the fat stays solid, the less the cookies will spread**, ensuring they retain a beautiful thick and chewy texture.
• Enhances Texture and Chewy Factor: Beyond preventing spread, the gradual absorption of liquid by the sugar during chilling contributes to a superior chewy texture. Sugars are hygroscopic, meaning they attract and hold onto moisture. With a proper chill, the sugar has more time to absorb liquid, which further inhibits spreading and helps create that desirable dense, chewy interior.
• Keeps the Caramel Perfectly Stuffed: For Caramel Stuffed Cookies, this reason is paramount. A sufficiently chilled and firm dough provides a strong barrier that helps encapsulate the gooey caramel center. Without adequate chilling, the dough will be too soft and warm, making it much more likely for the caramel to seep out during baking, leading to messy pans and lost filling. Chilling ensures the caramel stays exactly where it belongs – at the heart of your cookie.

Pro Tips for Bakery-Perfect Caramel Stuffed Cookies

Achieving truly exceptional Caramel Stuffed Cookies means paying attention to a few key details. These tips are designed to guide you towards a perfect bake every time, resulting in cookies that look and taste like they came straight from a gourmet bakery:

• Accurate Flour Measurement is Key: One of the most common baking mistakes is incorrectly measuring flour. If you simply press your measuring cup directly into a bag of flour and scoop, you will inevitably compact too much flour into the cup. This excess flour drastically alters the dough’s consistency, leading to dry, dense, and crumbly cookies instead of soft and chewy ones. To measure flour correctly, use the “spoon and level” method: gently spoon the flour into your measuring cup until it’s overfilled, then use the straight edge of a table knife or spatula to level off the excess flour at the top. This ensures you have the precise amount of flour needed for the perfect cookie texture. (Watch a video visual here for a clear demonstration.)
• Thoroughly Emulsify Butter and Sugars: When you’re mixing the cooled melted butter with the granulated and brown sugars, it might initially seem like they’re reluctant to combine into a smooth mixture. However, resist the urge to stop too early! Continue to whisk or stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes until the butter and sugars are completely emulsified. This means they should be fully integrated, creamy, and noticeably lighter in color. This thorough mixing not only incorporates air for a softer cookie but also ensures that the sugars dissolve properly, contributing to the desirable chewy texture and preventing a grainy mouthfeel.
• Embrace Slight Underbaking for Gooey Perfection: The secret to truly soft, chewy cookies with an irresistible gooey caramel interior is to slightly underbake them. Cookies continue to bake and set as they cool on the hot baking sheet, a phenomenon known as “carryover baking.” As soon as the edges of your Caramel Stuffed Cookies are ever-so-slightly golden brown and the tops no longer appear wet or overly shiny (a slight puffiness is a good sign), it’s time to pull them out of the oven! Keep a close eye on your cookies, as oven temperatures can vary significantly. Trust your instincts; a minute or two can make all the difference between a perfectly gooey center and a firm one.
• Precision with Caramel Stuffing: While a generous caramel center is the goal, too much caramel can lead to leakage, creating a sticky mess on your baking sheet. To prevent this, use only 1/2 of an unwrapped soft caramel for each cookie. More importantly, ensure that the cookie dough completely and securely encases the caramel piece, with no seams or gaps where the caramel could escape. A well-sealed dough ball is key to a perfectly contained, molten center.
• Utilize a Silpat® Liner or Parchment Paper: For superior baking results and much easier cleanup, always line your baking sheets with either parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (like a Silpat®). These liners promote even heat distribution, helping the cookie bases bake more uniformly and preventing them from becoming too crisp. Moreover, in the rare event that a bit of caramel does manage to seep out, cleanup becomes significantly less of a chore, as the caramel won’t stick directly to your pan.

Perfecting the Shape: Rolling and Baking for Bakery-Quality Cookies

Achieving that professional, bakery-style look and texture for your Caramel Stuffed Cookies is simpler than you might think with these expert techniques:

• Utilize a Food Scale for Uniformity: While not strictly essential, using a food scale to measure your cookie dough balls makes a surprisingly big difference in the final product. It might sound like an extra step, but many bakers find it speeds up the process compared to eyeballing sizes with spoons. Scoop out a portion of dough, place it on the scale, and add or remove dough until you reach the desired weight (e.g., 1.5 tablespoons of dough corresponds to approximately 40-45 grams, but adjust based on your specific recipe’s yield). Roll it, and repeat! Consistent dough ball sizes ensure that all your cookies bake evenly at the same rate, preventing some from being overbaked while others are underbaked. Plus, the visual appeal of uniformly sized cookies is undeniable – they’ll truly look like they came straight from a high-end bakery!
• Roll Tall, Cylindrical Dough Balls: Instead of shaping the dough into perfectly round spheres, aim for tall and skinny cylindrical balls. Each cookie will use a generous amount of dough – approximately 1.5 tablespoons – to ensure a substantial, thick, and ultra-chewy final product. We strongly advise against making smaller cookie dough balls for this recipe; reducing the size often leads to a different texture, and the precious caramel filling becomes much more prone to leaking out during baking.
• The “Warm Cookie Press” Technique: This is a game-changer for achieving perfectly round, thick cookies with slightly crispy edges and a wonderfully chewy center. Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven, while they are still hot and pliable, use the back of a large spoon or a metal spatula to gently press the edges of the cookies inwards towards the center. This quick shaping technique helps create those desirable “wrinkled” edges and ensures a beautifully uniform, round shape. You’ll need to work swiftly, as cookies set up quickly and become resistant to reshaping after just a minute or two out of the oven.
• Add Extra Toppings for Visual Appeal and Texture: Right after performing the warm cookie press, and while the chocolate is still melty, gently press a few additional chocolate chips and/or M&M’s onto the tops of your cookies. This not only enhances their visual appeal, making them look even more professional and enticing, but it also guarantees an abundance of chocolate in every single bite. Furthermore, these freshly added toppings provide a slight textural variation, as they will be less melted than the chocolate incorporated within the cookie dough, adding another layer of deliciousness.

Explore More Delicious Cookie Recipes

If you love these Caramel Stuffed Cookies, you’ll surely enjoy these other delectable cookie creations from our collection:

• Caramel Oatmeal Cookies featuring a delightful Rolo center.
• Magic Cookie Bars – an effortless dessert with a classic graham cracker crust.
• Maple Cookies topped with a luscious maple glaze for a sweet, comforting flavor.
• Salted Caramel Cookies complemented by a rich cream cheese frosting.
• Caramel Cookie Bars – buttery shortbread bars with a decadent caramel layer.

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Caramel Stuffed Cookies

By Chelsea Lords

Enjoy big, soft, chewy Caramel Stuffed Cookies loaded with M&M’s, chocolate chips, and a gooey caramel center! Plus, get all the tips to make them look and taste like bakery-fresh treats!

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Chilling Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

Servings: 28 cookies

Video Tutorial

A video tutorial for these Caramel Stuffed Cookies can typically be found here.

Equipment

• Sheet pan (15″ x 10″) lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat
• Large microwave-safe bowl
• Wooden spoon or spatula
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Optional: Food scale, 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop

Ingredients

• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk (see note 1)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled, see note 2)
• 3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup M&M’s (of choice)
• 14 regular-sized chewy caramels (halved, see note 3)
• Flaky sea salt (optional, for sprinkling)

Instructions

1. In a very large, microwave-safe bowl, melt the unsalted butter. Once completely melted, set the bowl aside and allow the butter to cool to room temperature for at least 5-10 minutes. This cooling step is crucial; hot or even warm butter will prematurely melt the sugars, leading to greasy and flat cookies.
2. Once the melted butter is entirely cooled, add both the light brown sugar and granulated sugar to the bowl. Whisk or stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes until the mixture is smooth, creamy, and the sugars are fully incorporated and emulsified. Next, add the large egg and mix until fully integrated. Then, stir in the egg yolk and vanilla extract until completely combined and smooth.
3. Add the salt, baking soda, and accurately measured flour to the wet ingredients. Mix until the ingredients are *just* combined; avoid overmixing the dough, as this can lead to tough cookies. Once a thick, cohesive dough has formed, gently fold in the chocolate chips and M&M’s until evenly distributed. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to chill for a minimum of 30 minutes, and up to 2 hours. This chilling time is essential for optimal texture and to prevent the cookies from spreading too much.
4. While the dough chills, unwrap all the caramels and cut each one in half. Once the dough is chilled, measure out individual portions of dough, approximately 1-1/2 tablespoons each. Roll each portion into a tall, cylindrical ball, carefully placing one caramel half into the center and ensuring it is fully encased by the dough with no seams. Place the rolled, caramel-stuffed cookie dough balls onto a parchment-paper-lined plate or baking sheet. Return them to the fridge for another 30 minutes of chilling. You should yield around 28 cookies from this dough.
5. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a silicone baking mat. Remove about 6 cookie dough balls from the fridge at a time and arrange them on the prepared baking sheet, leaving ample space between each cookie to allow for spreading. Keep the remaining dough chilled until ready to bake.
6. Bake for 8–12 minutes. For the softest, chewiest cookies with a truly gooey caramel interior, err on the side of underbaking. The cookies are ready when the edges are lightly golden brown and the tops no longer look wet or excessively shiny. Remember that cookies continue to set as they cool on the baking sheet. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and, working quickly while the cookies are still warm and pliable, use the back of a metal spatula or a large spoon to gently push any stray edges inward, shaping them into perfect rounds. If desired, press a few additional chocolate chips or M&M’s onto the tops of the hot cookies for extra visual appeal and texture. For a salted caramel experience, sprinkle a tiny pinch of flaky sea salt on top while the chocolate is still melty. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before carefully transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat the baking process with the remaining dough, or refer to the storage notes for freezing instructions.

Recipe Notes

Note 1 – Egg Yolk: This recipe specifically calls for one large egg plus an additional egg yolk. The extra egg yolk adds richness, tenderness, and chewiness to the cookies without introducing additional liquid from the egg white, which could make the cookies less dense and more prone to spreading. Discard the leftover egg white or save it for another recipe, such as an omelet, a meringue, or even this delicious egg wrap recipe.

Note 2 – Measuring Flour Accurately: For best results, use the “spoon and level” method when measuring flour. Do not scoop the flour directly from the bag with your measuring cup, as this packs it too tightly and can add up to 25% more flour than needed. Instead, lightly spoon the flour into your measuring cup until it’s overflowing, then use the flat side of a butter knife or a straight edge to level it off. This ensures your cookies are perfectly soft and chewy, not dry or cakey.

Note 3 – Caramel Selection & Encapsulation: Our favorite caramels for these Caramel Stuffed Cookies are Werther’s® Original Soft Caramels. It is essential to use soft, fresh caramels; old, stale, or hard caramels will not melt properly and can become tough inside the cookie. Also, ensure that each caramel half is completely encapsulated by the cookie dough. Any exposed caramel can melt out onto the baking sheet, making a mess and reducing the gooey center. Take your time to thoroughly seal the dough around the caramel.

Storage & Reheating: Store baked cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. The caramel will firm up as the cookies cool; for a warm, gooey center, microwave individual cookies for 8-12 seconds before serving. To freeze dough, shape the caramel-stuffed dough balls, freeze them solid on a tray, then transfer to a freezer bag for up to 3 months. Bake directly from frozen, adding a few extra minutes to the bake time.

Nutrition

Based on a serving size of 1 cookie (approximately 28 cookies total):

• Calories: 194 kcal
• Carbohydrates: 30g
• Protein: 3g
• Fat: 7g
• Saturated Fat: 4g
• Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g
• Monounsaturated Fat: 1g
• Trans Fat: 1g
• Cholesterol: 27mg
• Sodium: 82mg
• Potassium: 35mg
• Fiber: 1g
• Sugar: 15g
• Vitamin A: 191 IU
• Vitamin C: 1mg
• Calcium: 19mg
• Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation and may vary based on specific ingredients and brands used.

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