Caramel Apple Cider Cookies

Thank You Mother Nature!! I've been begging for sunny days with temperatures in the 60's. The last two days, she has answered my request. Yesterday, however, was spent doing what any gardener must always do on the first sunny day of mid-fall, cleaning out the flower beds. I spent yesterday morning completing the work on the blanket chest I've been refinishing and the afternoon doing the garden work, so I decided today was going to be a "just relax, do a little baking and enjoy the weather" kind of day.

I found the recipe for these cookies, midsummer and saved it for a perfect Autumn day like today. I mean really, does anything scream Autumn more than caramel apples, cider and cookies? Whomever the person was that decided to combine all three into one masterpiece should be awarded a Nobel Prize...GENIUS!

As always, we're going to start by preheating the oven.  Perhaps you can wait a little bit as these do require a little extra prep time but there are times when I feel I could walk to the bakery and back before my oven reaches temperature.  Either way, we're going to need our oven to be 350 degrees!

There's a whole list of ingredients we're going to be getting to here in a moment but I know you can't wait to find out what ingredients make the magic of caramel apple cider. It's not glitter or unicorns or fairy dust!

It's Spiced Cider instant drink mix and Kraft Caramels!!!  BLISS!!!

In a medium bowl, wisk together 3 cups of flour, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using your electric mixer, cream together 1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks), 1 cup of Sugar and all ten envelopes of the spiced cider drink mix. Once you get it nice and creamy, add 2 eggs (one at a time) and continue to mix until it's nice and fluffy. Now add in 1 tsp of vanilla! Now it's time to slowly add in your flour mixture. I started mixing with a wooden spoon but by the second addition of the dry mixture, I decided it was easier to mix it by hand...literally...I got my hands right in that bowl and mixed it up with my fingers. (After I washed them of course).

The hardest part of this entire recipe comes now! Unwrapping your caramels without eating them!! If you're as lucky as I was Kraft kindly will put 49 caramels in your bag and you'll only need 48 for the cookies since the recipe yields about 4 dozen cookies, that will leave you one for a warmup treat while you're waiting for the cookies to bake.

Next roll about 2 Tbsp of dough into a ball and then lightly flatten it in the palm of your hand. Now lightly press one caramel into the center.

Pull the dough up around the caramel until it's completely covered and then roll it back into a ball and place them onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet (you can use silpat if you have it). You don't want to use just a greased cookie sheet or foil as the caramel can stick to it and you definitely don't want to use wax paper!  Place your uncooked cookies about 3 inches apart so they have room to spread out without sticking together!

Bake them for 12-14 minutes. Just until they begin to crisp around the edges. Be careful not to overcook them as the caramel will burn on the bottom. 

After removing your cookies from the oven, slide the whole sheet of parchment paper off of your baking sheet, right onto the counter. After they have cooled enough to firm up, peel them off the parchment paper and flip them over to let them finish cooling upside down. I moved my upside down cookies to a cooling rack so they wouldn't sweat on my granite countertop. 

Now, I'll be honest, the person who claims this recipe makes 4 dozen cookies must be the same person that declared one small pack of Reese Cups to be two servings. I got 3 dozen medium sized cookies out of the recipe but that was quite alright by me, as it left 12 more unwrapped caramels that needed to be eaten. 

We're lucky enough to have neighbors just as wonky as we are, whom we enjoy very much. They were kind enough to invite us to dinner this evening, so that's one dozen less that will be sitting here tempting me to eat them all. Quite frankly I think he saw my post on Facebook about trying out a new cookie recipe since the invite came across my text messages within minutes! LOL

Be sure you serve your cookies with a nice cup of hot tea, coffee or apple cider because that caramel in the middle does have a tendency to stick to your teeth a bit. But hey isn't that one of the things we love about caramel??  I know for sure that this flavor combination is one of the things I love about Fall! Enjoy!

Ingredients

1 cup softened butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1  7.4 oz. box Alpine Spiced Apple Cider Instant Original Drink Mix (Do NOT buy Sugar Free)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 14 oz. bag Kraft Caramels 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

Using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter, sugar, and all ten packs of apple cider mix until fluffy. About three minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, beat until fluffy and add the vanilla to the butter mixture. 

Add flour mixture to creamy mixture in 3 small portions and mix thoroughly.

Roll about 2 tablespoons of dough into a ball (refrigerating the dough for about an hour makes this easier but is not required). Lightly flatten into the palm of your hand, add unwrapped caramel, wrap dough around caramel and return it to a ball shape.

Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet about 3" apart. Bake in 350 degree oven for 12-14 minutes until slightly crispy around the edges.

Slide parchment paper onto counter and allow cookies to cool until they are firm enough to turn them over. Allow cookies to finish cooling upside down on a baking rack.