Chocolate Caramel Pecan Turtle Cookies made with a chewy chocolate cookie rolled in pecans and topped with caramel and melted chocolate. The best turtle cookie recipe!
1 to 1 1/2cupsChopped Pecans(plus more for garnish)
1 to 1 1/2cupsCaramel Dip *(or thick dulce de leche)
1cupMilk Chocolate
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 4 minutes or until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add eggs and vanilla and beat for 1 minute longer.
Fold in cocoa powder, flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt.
Scoop out the cookie dough and roll it into balls. These cookies can be made small, medium, large, or extra-large. If you want an extra-large cookie, you want to roll it into 6-ounce balls. A large cookie would be 4.5-5 ounces. A medium cookie would be about 3 ounces. A small cookie of about two ounces. I suggest making them about 2.5 - 3 ounces.
Roll the sides of the cookie dough balls into chopped pecans and place on a light-colored baking sheet (may be lined with parchment paper). Gently press down on the cookie dough balls to slightly flatten them. Bake for about 9-11 minutes. Be careful not to overbake these cookies. Set aside to cool.
Once the cookies have cooled, carefully top each cookie with caramel dip, and spread it all over the cookie (may place in refrigerator to set up before adding the melted milk chocolate).
Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave on half power in 30-second increments until melted and smooth or in a double boiler. Drizzle the top with the melted chocolate. May sprinkle with extra pecans, if so desired. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to allow the caramel and milk chocolate to set up. Serve chilled.
Notes
Caramel Dip or Dulce de Leche -- this needs to be a thick caramel, not a runny caramel sauce. I like to use caramel dip (found in the produce section of the grocery store) because of its thickness.
I recipe tested this two ways -- one with caramel dip and one with Trader Joe's salted caramel sauce. The TJ's salted caramel sauce had a difficult time thickening. I had to place the cookies in the freezer after topping the cookies with the caramel sauce. The caramel dip worked better because of its thickness.