{Secret Recipe Club} Double Chocolate Caramel Mousse Cookies

I know, you're thinking "this isn't your normal reveal day for the Secret Recipe Club. What's happening?"  I get the pleasure of visiting two amazing blogs and making two delicious recipes this month.  I know!  Two!  How lucky am I?!?!

On Wednesday I received an email from Jane from The Heritage Cook.  She's the host for group A on the Secret Recipe Club.  One of the bloggers had to back out at the last minute and that left an orphaned blogger.  Just the name "orphaned" makes me sad.  And it's Christmas-time for heaven's sake.  That wouldn't be fair.  But man.  It's December and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with everything that I am doing (and need to do) in the next couple of weeks.  But I thought I'd check out the blog and see.

Yowza!  When I clicked on the link to Passionate About Baking to see if there was something I wanted to bake I immediately email Jane back and said "YES!!!"  Oh the possibilities!  

The Coffee Chocolate Pound Cake looked heavenly!

The Creme au Chocolat Shots, oh man!

The Nutella and Fresh Cherries Chocolate Tart, yowza!

But I decided on the Double Chocolate Mousse Cookies.  The only thing I did differently was instead of making a semi-sweet chocolate filling, I used caramel.  Don't they look yummy!

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 + 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
7 Tbsp butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 eggs
3/4 tsp. vanilla
3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted
(I think I converted everything okay.)

For the caramel filling:
20 caramels, unwrapped
1 Tbsp. heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine butter, sugar and cocoa powder until fluffy (about 4 minutes.)  Scrape down the bowl and sides.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well blended.  Add vanilla.  Add the cooled, melted chocolate and mix just until blended (about 30 seconds).

Mix flours, salt, baking powder and baking soda and add to sugar mixture.  Mix well.
I used my totally handy Pampered Chef medium scoop to get them a consistent size.
Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat and cook for about 8 - 10 minutes (until tops are puffed.)

 Note: if you want a harder, crisper cookie, bake for an additional 7 minutes.

When the cookies are just out of the oven, use the back of a 1/2 tsp. measuring spoon and push a small well into the tops of each cookie.
Let the cookies sit for about 4 minutes to cool and then transfer to a wire rack.
Do you see the little "wells" on them?

Prepare caramel:
Melt caramel and cream in the microwave, stirring after each 30 second interval.

Pour a small amount of caramel into each cookie well.

I like this caramel rather than using ice cream topping.  I like that it sets up so they can travel well and it doesn't stay runny or sticky.  Oh yeah, and it tastes awesome too =o)

Now try to not eat them all in one sitting =o)  They were really good.  My kids gave them the thumbs up which is huge.  My kids are pretty picky when it comes to desserts.

Enjoy!

Come take a look at all the other bloggers from Group A and see what they have created!

And don't forget to come back on Monday to see Group B's reveal!

I'm also linking to the parties on my sidebar.