Salted caramel and speculoos cookie butter, held together by chocolate. Life doesn’t get any better than this. If you’re feeling extra chocolately, try substituting nutella for speculoos butter – it’ll be swooooon worthy.

I was craving chocolate, but I also wanted ginger snap cookies… but all I had was cocoa powder and speculoos cookie butter in my pantry, so these cookies were the result of my cravings.

ingredients:

– 1/2 cup of unsalted butter
– 1 1/2 cup of brown sugar
– 1/2 cup of cocoa powder
– 3/4 TSP baking powder
– 2 eggs
– pinch of salt
– 1 1/2 cup of flour
– 1/2 cup of cake flour
– 1 cup of chocolate chips
– 1/2 of speculoos butter
– 1 serve of caramel recipe (notes below)
– salt flakes for topping.

the way:

– preheat oven to 350/180 degrees.
– in a saucepan, melt the butter. Take it off the heat and stir in the brown sugar until fully combined.
– add in the cocoa and baking powder, mix until combined. add in the flour and stir until there are no traces of whiteness left.
– stir in the chocolate chips.
– make the caramel, set aside.
– take a piece of the dough (tablespoon big), and use a finger to make a baby well in the center of the dough. Spoon in a little bit of caramel and a little bit of speculoos butter. Take the ends of the dough and bring them together in the middle while keeping the goods still in the indentation you made – form a ball.
– sprinkle with salt flakes and fridge for 30 minutes.
– bake for 8-10 minutes.

caramel:
– 1/3 cup of sugar
– 3 TBSP water
– 1/2 TBSP butter
– 3 TBSP heavy cream
– 1/2 TSP vanilla extract
– pinch or two pinches of salt

– bring the sugar and water to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir with a spoon until the sugar fully dissolves. Toss the spoon away and begin to tilt/swirl the pan until the edges begin to caramelize. Remove from heat ONCE all of the solution has turned to a goldish-brown color.
– add in the butter and tilt/swirl again to fully incorporate it.
– add in the heavy cream, swirl until combined.
– add in the vanilla and the pinches of salt.