Coconut Thumbprint Cookies with Salted Caramel (and/or Cookie Butter)

This recipe was featured in this month's Martha Stewart Living, and tried out by a few helpful blogs online.

The dough is really crumbly and hard to get into ball form (and impossible to thumbprint until they have cooked halfway), but the cookies turned out well overall.

I think the salted caramel is the way to go (Martha makes her own of course...I used a jar of Dulce de Leche), but I was caught up in the Cookie Butter craze and wanted to use that for these too, so I did half and half.

Both are good...these must get frozen before I am carrying all 54 cookies around on my thighs.


Makes 54 cookies

3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs beaten
12 ounces sweetened flaked coconut

44 small soft caramel candies (12 oz.) 
6 tablespoons heavy cream
1 jar Dulce de Leche

Flaky Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 350. Beat together butter and sugar with  mixer on medium speed until it is pale and fluffy, then add vanilla. Setting your mixer on low, gradually add flour and 1/2 tsp salt and beat to combine (some other bloggers have suggested adding 1 - 2 eggs to the butter/sugar mix...the dough seemed incredibly dry, but the cookies did turn out). Using plastic wrap, press dough together, and roll into 1 1/4-inch balls (I recommend rolling all of your balls and setting aside before you dip).

Working in fours (I found that worked best), dip each ball into the beaten egg, and then roll in coconut. (Yes, it is messy.)

Place balls on parchment-lined baking sheet and press and indentation of your thumb into each cookie (I couldn't do this til they had baked for 10 min or so). Bake for 10 minutes, then remove sheet from oven and re-press indentations. After that, put the sheet back in the oven and bake for another 9-10 minutes or until golden. Let cool on wire racks. Repeat with remaining dough.

Dump caramel/dulce de leche/cookie butter into a sandwich bag, and microwave for ~10-20 sec if you need to soften it a bit. Cut off a small corner of the bag, and pipe your filling of choice into the indentations of each cookie and sprinkle with sea salt. (Store in airtight containers for up to 2 days.)

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Living Feb 2012

The cookie butter filled version...

Salted Dulce de Leche* Cheesecake Bars

I decided I was going to make these for a 4th of July cookout before realizing that dulce de leche wasn't as easy to find as I would have thought. After looking in 6 stores, I gave up and bought caramel (Marzetti's caramel dip to be exact) and used that in place of the dulce de leche below.

The original recipe came from here, and other than the caramel sub, the only other change was to add about 1-2 Tbsp more cream to the topping, as the caramel was thicker than dulce de leche would have been.

These still turned out pretty well, and I'd definitely make them again -- hopefully actually using dulce de leche next time.

Crust
2 1/4 cups graham crackers, crushed
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
10 tablespoons melted butter

Filling
3 packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup Dulce De Leche (or caramel)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Glaze
2/3 cup Dulce De Leche (or caramel)
3 tablespoons heavy cream
sea salt or fleur de sel

Combine the crust ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Press into lightly greased (spray Pam is fine) 9 x 13 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Let cool.

In a mixing bowl combine cream cheese and sugar until fully blended. Add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add Dulce De Leche and vanilla extract and mix thoroughly. Pour and scrape over crust and spread evenly all the way to the edges of the pan. Bake at 350 for 38 to 42 minutes until filling is puffed, browning, and starting to crack. Remove and let cool.

Heat glaze, combine and spread over baked cream cheese and sprinkle with sea salt (start moderately) and refrigerate for an hour. Taste, and sprinkle with more salt if necessary before serving.