Dutch Caramel Cookies

When I first started this project in 2009, I have no idea where I thought this project was going to go? It started off as a game of sorts. On Thursday nights Glen and I would select three or four cookbooks from the few that I owned back then, in comparison to now, It was two shelves of a 5ft book shelf, now it’s an entire 7ft bookshelf and that’s not even enough, I have spread to other shelves around the house.

Back to my game, we would fan the pages and shout stop, whatever page it landed on is what I would cook, if there was more than one recipe on the page we would take it in turns to choose the recipe and if it was one we had already tried the pages got fanned again, but that was the only time that the pages got re-fanned, whatever it landed on that’s what I had to cook, no exceptions (because sweet/dessert recipes are at the back of books we skipped those pages). Friday I would do my shopping list and then when Glen got home from work we would go shopping, for the ingredients. Then I would set about making my new recipes, then they would get added to my notebook, I had the theory that it would make the recipes we had tried and liked easier to find, which in the beginning it was, except now I am about to start my third notebook and I have tried over 300 recipes now. I really hadn’t expected it to go this far, or for this long. Most things in my life fizzle out, so I had expected this to go the same way, but it hasn’t my need, desire, enthusiasm is still as strong today as it was when I first started nearly 5 years ago. Although I’ll admit with work commitments, leaving me little time these days, my progress is a little slower, but definitely not through choice… I often dream about quitting and becoming a full time housewife, cook, blogger extraordinaire. I am good at that stuff!

This next recipe is from a book Glen got me early last year, and although they are so simple to make I had so much fun doing them.

Dutch Caramel Cookies

125g softened butter

150g caster sugar

150g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

Caramel

50g caster sugar

1tbsp water

1.       To start with you need to make the caramel, so put the sugar and water into a small saucepan and place over a low heat for a couple of minutes until the sugar has dissolved stirring every now and again, then turn up the heat and bring the mixture to a fast simmer and cook for about 5 minutes or until the sugar caramelises and is a golden brown colour. Do be careful once it starts to turn because it doesn’t take too much to burn it.

2.       Line a baking tray with baking paper and as soon as the sugar has caramelised, pour it onto the baking paper as thinly as possible. Set to one side and leave it to cool… DO NOT TOUCH THE CARAMEL IT WILL BE HOT.

3.       Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F, place your butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, beat in the flour and baking powder, stirring well, until it comes together and forms a ball.

4.       Smash up the caramel into small bits, using a rolling pin or pestle and mortar, they don’t have to be equally sized or be the same shape, just little shards between 3-5mm.

5.       Stir the caramel bits into the cookie dough so that they are equally distributed throughout the dough, then split the dough into about 15 equal pieces and roll them into little balls, place them onto a baking sheet and squish them to about 1cm thickness, try to space them apart because they are going to spread.

6.       Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes so that they are a pale golden colour. Allow them to cool on the cookie tray as they will still be soft, and crumple if you try to move them. Check that they have firmed up and move to a wire rack