A rich, soft dark chocolate cookie encased with crunchy pecan pieces and filled with a smooth salted caramel sauce, combining sweet and salty to create cookie perfection.
Note: You can make the dough ahead you can refrigerate overnight but after the hour mark the dough gets a bit hard, so if you refrigerate any longer than an hour you'll want to let it sit at room temp for about 10-15 minutes before scooping and forming the cookie dough balls, to avoid the dough cracking when making the thumbprints).
Note: If you'd like to melt down packaged caramels to make a sauce instead of making the homemade version, melt 20 packaged caramels with 3 Tbsp. whipping cream/heavy cream in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until melted and smooth. Then add finely crushed sea salt to taste (start with 1/2 tsp. and taste test). Honestly, it will taste the same. It's nice to make homemade caramel sometimes, but other times it's nice not to spend 20 minutes stirring to potentially end up with a failed attempt at caramel.