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I try to not to make lofty claims when it comes to the recipes you see here on MBA. I’m certainly known to wax poetic about my latest creations, but I try not to toss around words like best, perfect, etc. too often. That’s simply because I know tastes vary and what pleases my palette, may simply not entice you at all.
Then one day I created these Turtle Cookies. I used my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough base and added caramel bits and chopped pecans into the mix. After one taste of the dough, I knew I had something amazing sitting in my KitchenAid. I impatiently waited for the dough to chill, rolled it into balls and threw them into oven. Then I gawked at them through the oven door while crossing my fingers hoping that the caramel pieces wouldn’t do something funky to the cookies.
They baked up perfectly – the caramel pieces melted a bit and created an an incredible, buttery, flavor within the cookies. Once they cooled, the caramel bits turned into slightly crunchy little nuggets of toffee – which paired perfectly with the pecans and dark chocolate chips.
I was proud of these cookies and knew if I kept them in the house, I’d devour them – one after another until I ended up in a cookie induced coma. So I packed them up and dropped them off to my dad and John, my mom’s boyfriend. Within a few hours I received a text message from my mom and a phone call from my dad declaring these babies to be, “the best cookies ever”.
I really think I’ve got cookie nirvana here, but I’d love to know what you think. Although these cookies call for a 24 hour chill time, I guarantee you’ll think they are worth every single minute!
Turtle Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour
- 1 ⅔ cups bread flour
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 ½ sticks unsalted butter
- 1 ¼ cups light brown sugar
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups dark chocolate chips
- 1 cup caramel bits
- 1 cup chopped pecans
Instructions
- 1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
- 2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- 3. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds.
- 4. Drop chocolate pieces, caramel bits, and pecans into dough and gently combine.
- 5. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
- 6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
- 7. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet
- 8. Bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more.
- 9. Repeat with remaining dough.
Notes
-I used Caramel Bits from King Arthur Flour, but I have seen the Kraft variety at my local market - although I can not attest to how they perform in this recipe.
-Recipe adapted from Jacques Torres and The New York Times.
Hi Jamie
What brand of dark chocolate chips did you use in this recipe. Did you use a cookie scoop or scale to get 31/2 ounces of dough. If, you used a scoop what size did you use.
Jackie-
I used Ghirardelli chocolate for this recipe. I also used a scale to weight the dough. The cookies pictured were about 2.5 – 3.0 ounces. Hope this helps! Have a delicious day!
-Jamie
Cookie nirvana sounds right. I can almost taste that melted caramel just reading the recipe. Yummy!!!!
I am def trying these!!!
I love turtles and continue to search for an all time great chocolate chip cookie recipe. So, I look forward to trying these. I doubt I can find caramel bits where I live, but still have some toffee bits from my last trip to the States. Thanks for the recipe!
Que ricas las galletas, están perfectas. Seguro que en mi casa acaban con ellas en dos segundos.
Saludos
These look absolutely amazing! I can hear the pecan fan in my life begging for them right now…
I am going to have to try to make these organic and possibly vegan if i can. I would LOVE to see if my son likes these. They sound good to me.
Hey Barbara @CC, we have the complete opposite problems. I’m so far below sea level and you are so high in the sky.
Jamie, love the sound of these cookies. I can’t wait to get off work and get my G-Babies so we can shop for ingreds together.Also will bring your ingredient list for your favorite chocolate chip cookies. Their dad always buys those tubs of cookie mix from the dairy section .The girls love to cook/bake with me. The 5 yr. old loves cupcakes so you know we’re trying all of yours, 1 recipe @ a time.Thanks so much for all the great recipes.
Do you refrigerate the dough for all your cookies? Or just these? What’s the reason?
– sorry baking novice here!
I’ve made the cookies from the NYT and they are good but not the best in my book. Now that being said…in my neck of the woods there is an ingredient that we always add that can not just make a cookie fall but a grown woman cry.
That ingredient? 5,280′
So I need to try again but in the meantime I’ve happened upon a recipe I love SO much (taste and final output with my high altitude configurations!) that I just know caramel bits would only enhance it.
Though it can be hard if we’re impatient for a cookie, I always put mine in the freezer overnight. Something about that time letting the ingredients meld just makes for a better cookie. I actually have gotten into the habit of rolling the dough into balls and freezing them on cookie trays and then storing them in Ziploc bags. That way we can bake them when we feel the urge for a cookie or two and not be tempted to devour the whole batch at once…or feel required to give them away!