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Ingredients
1 2/3 cups all-purpose
flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 9.25-oz. can "whole"
or "halves & pieces" salted cashews (or 2 1/2 cups)
2 tablespoons plus 1
teaspoon oil
1 stick (8 tablespoons)
butter, softened
3/4 cup packed
light-brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
extract
24 cubes (7 oz.) soft
caramel candy
1/4 cup heavy cream
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a small mixing bowl,
sift together flour and salt. Set aside. Coarsely
chop 1 cup of the cashews and set aside. Place
remaining cashews in food process and process until
finely chopped. Add oil and process again until
mixture becomes creamy like peanut butter (about 2
minutes).
Transfer cashew mixture,
butter and sugars in an electric mixer bowl. On
medium speed, mix until mixture becomes fluffy
(about 2 minutes). Add egg and vanilla and mix again
briefly until blended. Reduce speed to low and add
flour gradually, mixing until thoroughly blended.
Remove bowl from mixer and add chopped cashews. Mix
in cashews with a fork.
Form into 1 1/2-inch
balls and place on cookie sheets about 2 inches
apart. Bake for 6 minutes, then remove from oven and
flatten cookies with a spatula to about 1/2-an-inch
thick. Return to oven and cook for another 6-7
minutes or until cookie bottoms are beginning to
turn golden brown in color. Transfer cookies to a
wire cooling rack and cool completely.
While cookies are
cooling, add caramel candies and heavy cream to a
small sauce pan and heat on low, stirring
frequently. When caramel mixture has completely
melted, remove from stove and allow to cool
completely. When cookies and caramel icing have
cooled, using a spoon, drizzle caramel icing over
cookies. If icing becomes a little too firm to
drizzle, heat in microwave for about 5 seconds to
soften (be careful not to make the caramel too warm
and runny).
Store in air-tight
containers in single layers. (Note: Icing all the
cookies at once and storing in single layers might
not work well if you do not have multiple
containers. Another easy storage option is to only
drizzle the caramel icing over a few cookies at a
time, storing them separately from the non-iced
cookies. Store the non-iced cookies together (it's
okay to stack them), and store the caramel icing in
the fridge. When ready to ice another batch of
cookies, simply heat the caramel icing in the
microwave just enough to make spreadable (but not
warm), then ice as many cookies as you want and
store separately from the non-iced cookies). |
