Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup salted dry roasted peanuts
10 soft caramels, cut into 1/4 inch pieces*
3/4 cup mini marshmallows
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and combine thoroughly. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until a very thick dough forms. Fold in the chips, marshmallow, peanuts and caramels. Form cookies by dropping 1 heaping teaspoon of dough two inches apart. Flatten slightly then bake until light brown, about 14 minutes. Slide them out ON the parchment paper on to a wire rack and allow them to cool 2-5 minutes (or until the caramel isn’t quite so molten) on the parchment on the wire rack before removing the parchment and allowing them to cool directly on the wire rack.

Yield: about 1 1/2-2 dozen cookies

*I used Werther’s soft caramels and halved them. (they are super cheap at Aldi BTW)

My thoughts:

One of my favorite candy bars in the Goo Goo Cluster. Unfortunately, it isn’t sold here in Baltimore so I have to stock up in airports and on trips further south. (You can order them online but I have had bad luck ordering chocolate outside the absolute dead of winter) For the uninitiated, the basic Goo Goo Cluster is a chocolate-covered mix of peanuts and caramel with a marshmallow cream center.

Since I don’t have access to Goo Goo Clusters, I had an idea that makes me either a mad genius or just plain mad. Why not take all of the ingredients that make Goo Goo Clusters so awesome and turn them into a cookie? Why not, indeed. It worked surprisingly well! A few had some caramel ooze but that is to be expected. Any extra caramel was easily broken off the cookies after they cooled and the marshmallow basically melts into the batter and gives it a soft, chewy texture. The cookies were oddly not super duper sweet (thanks to the peanuts and dark chocolate, I think) but they are very satisfying to eat. The cookies really do taste like a Goo Goo Cluster and a chocolate chip cookie had a baby. So if slightly sticky, chewy, caramel-y, chocolate-y, peanut-y desserts are your thing, make these cookies today!

The dough is very chunky and a little sticky so if you have a cookie scoop, this a good excuse to put it to use.