Homemade Caramel DeLites (Samoas)

Ingredients

Shortbread cookies:

• 1 cup plus 4 tablespoons flour
• 1/3 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon cold milk
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:

• 1½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
• 2 cups caramels, unwrapped
• 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1½ cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Prepare cookies:

1. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add flour mixture and mix until fine crumbs form. Add milk and vanilla and continue to mix until dough comes together.

2. Flatten dough slightly, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill 1 hour or freeze 20 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4. After dough has chilled, roll it out on a flat well-floured surface to about ¼-inch thickness. (If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of flour over the dough and knead it a few times with your hands; roll it back until it is ¼ inch thick.)

5. Use a round cookie cutter to cut as many cookies as you can from the dough. Cut the centers out with a smaller cookie cutter. (Note: A small doughnut cookie cutter from Sur La Table for $4 worked great).

6. Place each cookie onto a baking sheet. Repeat rolling and cutting process until you have used all of the dough.

7. Bake cookies 10 to 12 minutes until they look dry and very slightly golden in color. Let the pan cool on a wire rack a few minutes and then transfer cookies to another rack to finish cooling.

Make topping:

1. In a medium pan over medium heat, continually stir coconut flakes until lightly browned (about 3 to 5 minutes). Set toasted coconut flakes aside.

2. In a microwave-safe bowl, combine caramels and heavy cream and microwave on high 2 minutes. Stir and return to microwave 20 seconds at a time, stirring at each interval, until caramel is fully melted and smooth. Stir in salt and vanilla.

3. Spread about 1 to 2 teaspoons caramel on top of each shortbread cookie. Chill 2 to 3 minutes to let caramel set.

4. Stir coconut flakes into remaining caramel. Spread coconut-caramel mixture onto each cookie. Chill again while you prepare the chocolate.

5. Add chocolate chips to a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on medium power for 2 minutes. Stir, then return to microwave 20 seconds at a time, stirring at each interval, until fully melted and smooth.

6. Carefully dip each cookie into melted chocolate so that bottom is well coated. After all cookies have been dipped, drizzle remaining chocolate over cookies.

Makes 18 cookies. Store in airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

This recipe is from lecremedelacrumb.com. Tested by Alysha Witwicki