Chocolate Chip Caramel Macadamia Nut Cookies

Yes, I know. It is a mouthful, but having a mouthful of one of these cookies is heavenly.

While shopping at my local Publix last week they had this huge sale bin full of various baking items. All of them for 50 cents. I rummaged through it and put 2 boxes of brown sugar and these:

I love the size of them and without having to unwrap individual squares of caramel, it's definitely a time saver. What was even better, is that when I checked out at the register they were only 25 cents, Score!

I know I wanted to bake cookies with the caramels, so I browsed the net for a standard recipe that I could tweak. I came across this one. I decided to go with it because I liked how many cookies the recipe yeilded. I was sharing these with my coworkers, and after a couple days of state testing, we all need a little treat. I didn't tweak much really, just replaced the pecans with macadamia nuts, added Reeses pb chips ( Why not? I had about 1/2 cup on hand), replaced 1/2 of the granulated sugar with brown, and added 1/2 tsp. of vanilla to the butter, sugar egg mixture.

They baked in 15 minutes, and came out beautiful. The coworkers were pleased. : )

Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter

1 cup granulated sugar (used half cup)

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar (increased to one cup)

2 large eggs

6 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped coarse (used 1/2 cup chips and added 1/2 cup pb chips)

18 caramels such as Kraft, chopped coarse (about 1 cup)

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans (used macadamia nuts)

(Added 1/2 tsp. vanilla)

Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl with an electric mixer cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, and beat in flour mixture.
Stir chocolate, caramels, and pecans into dough and drop rounded tablespoons about 2 inches apart onto baking sheets. Bake cookies in batches in middle of oven 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden. Cool cookies on baking sheets on racks until firm. Cookies keep in airtight containers 5 days.