If It's Saturday, I'm Baking Cookies...

Oh  boy ... I went to this bridal shower a few weeks ago. There were incredible sweets gracing the sideboard in the dining room... look! See those chocolate cookies on the tiered stand?

There were entirely too few of them there! They disappeared ... like, really fast ... sucked into the chocolate vortex created by a couple dozen women grazing the dessert table. I am telling you, since I grabbed one of those little chocolate bombs, I've been obsessed with finding a recipe for them . Our hostess called them Rolo Surprises.


Now, you know you can find anything on-line and I have been searching! I was fortunate to find a few recipes. Most have pecans in the cookies and gracing the tops, some have white chocolate drizzled on top, some have coarse sugar on top. The cookie I grabbed at the shower was about 3/4 of an inch thick, chewy and gooey on the inside, crisp crunch cookie shell, with a caramel candy dead center to surprise you and add a last bit of chewiness to the 'cookie experience'. I'm telling you it was a true chocolate caramel revelation.

So ... today is Saturday. It's always baking day in the Lindquist house. I scored a bag of Rolo candies at the market yesterday and I'm experimenting with the recipes I found on-line at a couple of the encyclopedic recipe sites. I'll get back to you if you want exact addresses. I'd have to search it again to find exactly where I pulled the three I've been playing with.  For this dough, I'm increasing the vanilla (I love more vanilla taste), splitting the butter to a half butter/half margarine measure ( I think this gives the cookies more 'rise' and less 'spread'), increasing the brown sugar and decreasing the sugar (increasing the chewiness), and ditching any nuts and white chocolate garnishes to opt for the raw sugar (big crystals)  crunchy, crackly topping. So, here goes! Let's see what we get! Rolo Surprise Cookies comin' up!

Rolo Surprise Cookies - printer friendly

Rolo Surprise Cookies

Ingredients:
2 ¾ c. flour
¾ c. cocoa
1 ½ c. light brown sugar
½ c. sugar
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 c. butter/margarine - a stick of each
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 pkg. (40-count) Rolo candies
1 c. chopped pecans (optional)
Coarse sugar – for dipping cookies
White chocolate for drizzling decoration (optional)

Making the Cookies:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat until creamy: butter, margarine, brown sugar and sugar.

2. Add one egg at a time and continue beating until smooth.

3. Add vanilla and beat.

4. In a separate bowl combine the other dry ingredients and whisk to take any lumps out of the cocoa.

5. Turn the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until combined.

6. Optional: Turn in half the nuts and combine.

7. Refrigerate the dough for about an hour.

8. Preheat oven to 375⁰ F.

9. Using a tbsp-measure, roll the dough around an unwrapped Rolo to completely enfold the candy.

10. Have a bowl of coarse sugar ready and dip the tops of the cookies in the sugar. You can also have the other half of the nuts in with the sugar… this is an optional step.

11. Place the cookies on a cold, ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10 -12 minutes. Cookies should be just set up and cracking on the top surface.

12. Remove from the oven and cool on cookie sheet for a couple minutes. Remove to a flat surface to cool completely.

13. Optional: Melt white chocolate in a plastic bag ( medium power in microwave for 1 to 2 minutes, squish bag and turn over, microwave again at medium power for another minute or so. Snip a tiny corner and drizzle cookie tops for decoration. Leave to ‘set’ the chocolate for another 30 minutes.

Postscript:
Okay, Silent Bob and I have had cookies and milk and we both agree that this recipe is a keeper. I baked the cookies for 13 minutes because they were about the size of a golf ball by the time I got the Rolo candy completely encased. They make a big cookie. Incidentally, this recipe makes two dozen cookies, so if you're baking for a big party, double the recipe. A conventional sized bag of Rolos will do for a double batch. So... there you have it! Rolo Surprise Cookies!