Caramel Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are soft & chewy cookies with a delightful salted caramel filling. This chocolate crinkle cookie recipe is a traditional crinkle cookie but elevated to the next level thanks to the salted caramel filling.
These chocolate crinkle cookies stuffed with caramel are made from scratch with basic ingredients that are most likely in your kitchen right now! Serve these salted caramel cookies for your next family movie night, with the soft and sweet cookie filled with gooey caramel, there’s really no way you can go wrong!
What are caramel chocolate crinkle cookies?
Crinkle cookies get their name from the way they look after they’ve been baked. These cookie dough balls are baked and as they flatten, they spread out and crack, leaving a unique design on each cookie masterpiece. Each one is then dusted in powdered sugar to really highlight the unique appearance.
What makes these cookies even better though is that we shoved a little piece of caramel inside, which melts into a soft gooey bite of heaven in the center. These homemade chocolate cookies are simply amazing and worth the effort to make them!
Why you’ll love these Caramel Crinkle Cookies
- Simple ingredients. You do not need much to make this recipe. In fact, the ingredients that you do need are simple pantry and kitchen staples. Meaning that you may already have everything you need on hand already.
- They taste amazing. While these cookies are a simple chocolate dough, they are packed with amazing flavors. The soft cookie texture with the light sweetness of the powder sugar pairs perfectly with the gooey caramel filling.
- Easy homemade treat. To make these amazing cookies, you need some ingredients and a little patience. You can create a tasty treat so easily and everyone will think they came from a bakery or store!
Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkles Ingredients
Butter: Adding in 10 tablespoons of butter, softened, to get a great texture and richness in every bite.
Sugars: Use 1 cup of granulated sugar and ½ cup of packed light brown sugar to get a great depth of flavor, color and sweetness.
Eggs: Add in 2 large eggs to help bind the cookie dough ingredients together.
Vanilla: Using 1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla extract will enhance all the flavors in this dough.
Flour: You will need 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour for the structural base of these cookies.
Cocoa powder: Add in ½ cup of cocoa powder, plus an additional 2 tablespoons, to get the rich chocolate flavor we want.
Baking powder: This is the leavening agent in this recipe, creating nice fluffy cookies. You need 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder for the perfect cookie texture.
Salt: This works as a flavor enhancer, use ¼ teaspoons of salt to make the other flavors in this cookie dough stand out.
Caramels: You can use unwrapped caramel pieces, leftover caramel apple sheets or 2 dozen Rollo’s, depending on which one you think you’d like best or have on hand. Tip: This is a great way to use up leftover Rollo’s after Halloween.
Coarse salt: The salt will help to add a little “something extra” inside our stuffed cookies giving us a sweet and salty caramel bite in the center. Yum!
Powdered sugar: You need about 1 cup of powdered sugar to help coat the cookies after they’ve finished baking.
How to Make Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Prep
Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray or parchment paper.
Dough
In a medium size bowl, cream the butter and white and brown sugars together with an electric mixer on medium speed, until the mixture is light and fluffy. This should take about 4 minutes.
Next, add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Then add the vanilla extract and mix again.
Proceed to add in the dry ingredients, the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, mix again until combined.
Add caramel center
After that, scoop out the dough into 2 tablespoon sized scoops and roll it into a ball with floured hands.
Then press a caramel, or Rollo candy, into the center of the dough, sprinkle with a little coarse salt and pinch the dough around it to keep it covered, roll back into a ball, and then roll the dough gently in powdered sugar.
Bake
Line the cookies on the baking sheet leaving room for them to expand. Bake in the oven for 11-13 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before sprinkling with powdered sugar again, if desired.
Serve and enjoy!
Can you freeze chocolate crinkle cookies after baking?
Absolutely! These cookies freeze very well. Simply keep them stored in an airtight container for up to a few weeks and when you want to eat them, let them thaw and give a fresh coat of powdered sugar and they’ll taste as good as fresh.
How do I keep the dough from sticking to my hands?
The dough can be rather sticky, so keeping your hands well-floured is a great way to avoid that. Also, remove any finger jewelry like rings if you don’t want to clean dough out of the tiny nooks and crannies later.
How long do homemade cookies last?
These cookies will last up to a few days if stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
Halloween is usually a pretty big deal in our house! The kids get super excited about choosing costumes, trying them on a million times, etc. This year is quite different! It’s nearly 1/3 of the way thru October and I haven’t heard a peep about Halloween. I guess we all realize Covid Halloween will be different. My daughter and I were at Walmart not too long ago and saw these super fun puppy costumes. We HAD to get them. We now have a cute little taco and a bacon & eggs. Scout & Penny don’t look so sure about them, ha!
More delicious cookie recipes you’ll want to try soon!
- Spiced Apple Cookies
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Mix Cookies
- Soft M&M Cookies
- Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
- Granola Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Cinnamon Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
- Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Surprise Chocolate Kiss Cookies
- Banana Oatmeal Cookies
- S’mores Cookies
- Buckeye Cookies
- Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies
- Lemon Slice and Bake Cookies
- Frosted Italian Cookies
- Birthday Cake Cookies
Caramel Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are an incredible treat with an amazing salted caramel filling. This chocolate crinkle cookie recipe is a unique twist on a classic crinkle cookie thanks to the salted caramel filling.
Taryn says
These were so good! Planning on making them again for Christmas.
Lauren Kleiman says
These cookies are dreamy. I mean what more could you ask for in a cookie! The caramel center takes these cookies to the next level.
Kaylie says
Thank you, Lauren!