I’ve had a day off work today. It was a great opportunity to catch up with my friends over in Leeds for lunch. They’re my cake club lovelies. We met initially through the now disbanded Clandestine Cake Club and got on so well we meet up regularly to put the world to rights over coffee and cake. But before I drove over to Leeds my dog had an appointment at the “pooch parlour” to have his nail trimmed and a good old shampoo. While he was up the road having his beauty treatments, I was at home baking cookies.

Last September when I was visiting my family in Canada, I bought a few bags of Hershey’s Chipits. I had bought some butterscotch and some mint ones the year before but this year I couldn’t find the mint flavour. I ended up with about four different flavours and the final bag which needed using up was this bright blue bag of Salted Caramel Chips. (Pictured below).

How I wish I could find these in the UK. No one seems to stock them or a similar product. If you do know where I can find them, please let me know. I’m hoping to go back to Canada in the Autumn so I’ll have to keep extra space in my suitcase for some more supplies!

I was wondering what I could do with the chipits and thought of baking “Brookies” which are double layered brownies and cookie bars. My son loves them and sometimes gets one from our local Co-op! But I didn’t have any spare plain chocolate for the brownies. Instead, I tried out the recipe which is on the actual packet for Chocolate and Salted Caramel Cookies. It was really quick to make and the recipe yielded 30 cookies! I didn’t need real chocolate for this, but cocoa powder for the chocolate flavour.

First, I creamed together butter and both light brown and caster sugar in a mixing bowl. To this I then added beaten egg and a spoonful of vanilla extract. When this was mixed in I folded in plain flour, baking powder and cocoa powder. Then, I formed the mixture into a dough and finally folded in the whole packet of Chipits.

I needed five baking trays lined with parchment for the cookies. I scooped small balls of dough onto the trays, keeping the cookies well apart so they didn’t spread and join together. I usually put 6 cookies on each tray and two trays in at a time. If you don’t have that many trays you will have to cook in batches. Just remember to wait five minutes before moving the cookies off the baking tray or they might fall apart! I still have loads of trays left from when I baked cookies professionally.

The cookies were baked in my fan oven at about 160oC for about 8 minutes. At this point I take the cookie tray out of the oven and bang it on the hob. This flattens the cookies down. Then I returned the cookie trays back to the oven for a further 5 or so minutes. I don’t overdo my cookies as I like them chewy.

I was really happy with these cookies and my son enjoyed one or two today while he was off work. I have had to hide the rest and will be taking them to work with me tomorrow before I end up troughing the lot.

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx