Million Dollar Cookies Recipe – How to Make a Quick Million
Make a Cool Million with This Million Dollar Cookies Recipe!
Food pops up a lot in the middle grade books I read.
From Love Sugar Magic by Anna Meriano (cookies! cakes! bread!) and The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders (chocolate, of course) and A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd (ice cream!).
I appreciate it when an author adds recipes at the back of the book, too.
The book that I wrote (and, yes, I’m still shopping it around) has cookies, cookies, cookies—and mentions all kinds of other baked goods.
I love reading about baking and being surrounded by baked goods.
I love going into a charming bakery and seeing the glass cases filled with beautiful cakes and tray after tray of cookies and then baskets of bread behind the register.
If they serve coffee or hot chocolate or chai tea, even better.
This recipe for Million Dollar Cookies is similar to one that a character in my story bakes.
She baked her own shortbread and made her own caramel.
For all you purists out there, that’s really how this recipe should be made.
But to streamline and speed up the process, for this, I used store-bought shortbread cookies (good ol’ Keebler shortbread—the whole package) and caramel bits (these are just like those square Kraft caramels but unwrapped and in little round balls—find them in the baking section of your store).
The most time-consuming part is waiting for each layer to cool off before adding the next layer.
Million Dollar Cookies
(adapted from MidwesternHomeLife.com)
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Grease an 8×8 baking pan.
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups crushed shortbread cookies
7 tablespoons (which is just about a stick) melted butter (use the leftover tablespoon to grease your pan)
1 cup of caramel bits
2 teaspoons milk
1 cup milk chocolate chips
Sea salt (optional)
Instructions:
1. Crush the shortbread in a Ziploc bag with a rolling pin. Or a food processor.
2. Melt the butter.
3. Stir the shortbread crumbs and butter together in a medium-size bowl until combined.
4. Pat the mixture firmly into your 8×8 pan. Use your hand or a spatula to press it down.
5. Bake this crust for 20 minutes.
6. Pull it out of the oven and let it cool until you can touch and hold the pan without burning your fingers. Then put it in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes to firm up.
7. Melt the caramel bits with the milk in a pot on your stove over medium heat. Mix until it’s smooth.
8. Immediately, spread the caramel on top of the shortbread crumbs. Be gentle so you don’t pull up the crumbs.
9. Put the pan back in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes until the caramel is firm to the touch.
10. Melt the chocolate chips either in the microwave or, if you’re like me and don’t have one, in a makeshift double boiler*.
11. As soon as it’s smooth, spread it on top of the caramel layer.
12. Let the chocolate dry for just a couple of minutes. Then sprinkle on flaky sea salt.
13. Put the pan back in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes until the whole thing is firm and cool.
14. Get a knife and CAREFULLY go around all the sides of the pan to loosen the cookie.
15. Once you can feel that the cookie is loose, carefully turn the pan over onto a cutting board. Flip over the cookie. Using a sharp knife, CAREFULLY cut the cookies into bars. Then cut the bars into rectangles or squares.
* For the double-boiler: Put water in a large pot. Put a colander on top of that. Pour the chocolate chips into a smaller pot and put that into the colander. As the water boils, the chocolate chips will begin to melt. Stir, stir, stir until smooth.
You can put these finished cookies in the freezer for up to three months (ha! If you don’t eat them first.)
You can also put them into a Ziploc bag and keep in the refrigerator for about a week.
I hope you like them!
~gail
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Gail,
These look and sound yummy. And not too hard to make either. Thanks for sharing.
Not difficult at all! Thanks, Suzanne. I always appreciate your comments. 🙂