Caramelized White Chocolate is one thing. And fudgy chocolate cookies are another thing. Combining them together makes absolutely EPIC cookies!
Fudgy, chocolatey cookies meet caramel
Imagine sitting on your couch. Watching Netflix or some other great TV show. In your hands, you hold a bowl of fudgy chocolate cookies that are moist, not crumbly (good for eating on the couch!) and taste out of this world. May I present: Caramelized White Chocolate Cookies. Or: Your next baking project.
These cookies use only a handful of ingredients. I am quite sure you have all of them in your cupboard already. Except maybe for the white chocolate, but that is easily found at the store. You might need to buy some macadamia nuts too, but those are optional – they add a bit of crunch to otherwise fudgy soft cookies. I like the cookies either way 🙂
Caramelized White Chocolate
Wait, … what?
You might be asking yourself “How do you caramelize chocolate?” or “WHAT, you can CARAMELIZE chocolate?” or “What does it taste like?”
Well, YES, you can caramelize white chocolate. I don’t love white chocolate as much as dark chocolate or milk chocolate (with nuts, please), because it is rather sweet. Hint: There is sugar in white chocolate, which leads to the caramelization.
Its flavour is mysterious, and it is hard to describe. To me, it tastes almost better than normal salted caramel. It is like caramel with some chocolate undertones because there is cocoa butter in there. Please just make it!
How to make Caramelized White Chocolate
The process behind this miracle is actually quite simple – just a little bit time-consuming. But worth it.
The sugar in the chocolate turns into caramel, because we slowly melt the chocolate at a warm-ish temperature. The cocoa butter in the chocolate makes your caramel taste of chocolate, too.
I find it easier using white chocolate that has a cocoa butter content of 28% and up, preferably 30%, or even 32%. It melts a bit quicker and easier, because the high cocoa butter content breaks down the chocolate more evenly. 20% will not melt as well and might really dry out and go too grainy.
The oven method
Preheat your oven to 120° C (convection). Prepare a baking tray by putting on a sheet of parchment paper. Next, chop the white chocolate and place the pieces evenly on the tray.
Now, for 10-15 minutes at a time, put the tray in the oven. When the time is up (please NOT longer!), take the tray out, and use a spatula to spread the chocolate around. It is very likely that the chocolate will be grainy. Don’t worry, that is okay. After really stirring, place the tray back in the oven, and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Then take it out again, stir, back in the oven etc. Do this about 3-6 times, depending on the colour you want. For me, an hour is usually enough. By then the colour is a beautiful dark amber/golden tone, and the taste is so so good. I actually suggest making a few extra grams (as in: instead of 100 grams, 200!), because with all the licking in between and breaking off shards when the caramelized white chocolate has hardened, you won’t be left with too much to spare for baking. Take caution!
When you are finished, and you aren’t using it directly, place the whole tray in the fridge for about 30-60 minutes so the chocolate firms up. You might find yourself snacking and licking on this chocolate – I forgive you, I have done it too 🙂 You might need the chocolate as chopped up pieces, or, like in this recipe, it needs to be runny. If you need it to be runny, just break up some pieces, place it in a heat-proof bowl and microwave for 30 seconds and then stir. repeat with 10 second intervals.
You can also place the chocolate over a bain-marie to melt: Boil water in a pot, and then place a glass bowl over the pot (the water shouldn’t touch the bowl). Then add your chocolate pieces into the bowl. The steam will melt the chocolate.
The microwave method
The microwave method might be a little bit quicker, but unfortunately, not everyone has one. You need a heat-proof bowl, put the chopped white chocolate in the bowl, and microwave for 2 minutes. Then take the bowl out, stir well, and put the bowl back in for another two minutes. Continue doing this about 10 times.
Can I use another kind of chocolate?
The whole drip-cake era used any kind of chocolate for the drips. To be honest, I haven’t tried using another kind of chocolate for these cookies, though. You can’t really caramelize it.
What you can certainly do though is melt any kind of chocolate, and just like in the recipe, pour a tablespoon of the runny chocolate on the balls of dough. It might turn out to be a bit crumbly or grainy, but it will still taste great.
Add-ins
As I mentioned already, the nuts in this cookie are perfectly optional. Since it has a bit of a brownie-like flavour and texture, you could add walnuts or pecans, but I prefer macadamia nuts. I think macadamia nuts pair really well with the intense, decadent flavour of the cocoa in the cookie.
What also tastes absolutely insane … is adding in shards of the caramelized white chocolate. Instead of melting all the caramelized white chocolate to go on the cookies, you reserve some and break it into little pieces and shard. When making the dough, after incorporating the flour and there are still flour streaks to be seen, add in the chocolate shards. This will make one epic cookie, I promise you. Of course, you can also add in any other chocolate; you can add chocolate chips or even chop up a chocolate bar.
Let’s get cracking!
If you make these caramelized white chocolate cookies, please leave me a comment and rate the recipe! 🙂 And don’t forget to tag me on Instagram and Facebook.
Print
Caramelized White Chocolate Fudge Cookies
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 16 Cookies 1x
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
Description
Fudgy, chocolatey cookies topped off with puddles of caramelized white chocolate. Yum!
Ingredients
- 120 g butter
- 60 g brown sugar
- 150 g white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar / extract
- 150 g flour
- 50 g cocoa powder, sifted
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 100–200 g white chocolate
- 60 g madacamia nuts, chopped up roughly
- flaky sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
Caramelized White Chocolate
- Preheat oven to 120 ° C, convection/fan-assisted oven. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Chop the chocolate and place onto the baking tray. Bake for 10-15 minutes (not longer at a time!), and take tray out of oven.
- Using a spatula or a spoon, swirl and stir the chocolate around. Don’t worry if it is grainy, the melting process will fix that. Place the tray in the oven again, bake 10-15 minutes, take out, stir, etc. Totally I do this about 3-6 times, so between 45 minutes and 1 1/2 hours.
- When finished with the caramelisation process, let the tray sit at room temperature for the chocolate to cool down a little. Then place the tray in the fridge for the chocolate to fully harden.
- Depending on the recipe, you will need to break the caramelized chocolate into little shards, or melt it down again. If you haven’t taste-tested too much, you will have some left-overs, which pair nicely with dark chocolate or vanilla ice-cream.
Chocolate Fudge Cookies
- Preheat oven to 160°C convection. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla. After 3 minutes, add the egg.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Slowly fold into the creamed mixture. Optional: add the nuts. (If the dough is too stiff, add 1 tablespoon of milk).
- If your chocolate isn’t runny/melted yet, proceed to melt it in the microwave or over a bain-marie, as explained in the blog post.
- Whilst your chocolate is melting, form dough balls of about 35 grams. Place the balls on the tray, leaving enough space in between them, as they do spread.
- On each cookie ball, pour a tablespoon of the caramelized white chocolate. It is okay if it runs down the sides; it will bake into the cookie and make for a crinkle-y top. Yum!
- Bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove tray from oven, and sprinkle a little bit of salt onto the still soft chocolate. Let cool. These cookies are very fudgy, and are almost better on the second day – that is, if they last so long! 🙂
Notes
- You can easily prepare the caramelized white chocolate in advance, and just keep it in the fridge until you’re ready. Then melt it when you pour it onto the cookie dough balls.
- Caramelized white chocolate pairs really well with vanilla ice cream too … just sayin’ 😉
[…] you’re a chocolate lover, you’ll absolutely enjoy these Caramelized White Chocolate Fudge Cookies. Dipped in a glass of milk, you’ll never need another cookie […]