Habanero Caramel Cookies

This is a recipe I created a couple of years ago. I love working with peppers and I wanted to do a dessert with Habanero peppers. I tried doing ice cream but the peppers were so hot that it would not freeze. It did make quite an exciting malted. Because of my long history with Habanero peppers, I implore you to please wear gloves. I can not stress this enough. These peppers will burn the skin and you really do not want to accidentally rub your eye with Habanero juice fingers. That said, this is a fun recipe which always gets a great reaction when I bake them.

2 ¼ C self-rising flour
¼ tsp salt
½ C butter (unsalted) ¾ C granulated sugar
¼ C brown sugar
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract 2 large eggs
½ C homemade caramel w/chopped habaneros
Optional ingredients, ½ C Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Chips, ½ C chopped pecans or toasted almonds.

Preheat oven to 350º

Caramel
In a sauce pan add 1 C sugar and enough water to wet to dampen the sugar. Heat pan until sugar and water melts and begins to turn amber. Turn off heat and add 1 C cream slowly stirring continuously. Once caramel is the desired consistency, add habanero peppers.

Cream sugar, brown sugar and butter together until creamy and the sugar has dissolved. Beat eggs thoroughly (none of that barely beaten egg stuff, I despise the taste of egg in baked goods.) and add to butter and sugar mixture. Add salt. Slowly incorporate flour to the mixture. Add ¾ of the caramel to the dough. Fold caramel into dough, just until caramel can be seen through out the dough. Using hands seems to work best; however because of the heat of the habanero pepper, I highly recommend wearing gloves. If you are using optional ingredients please add them now. Use a plastic spoon to drop a teaspoon of dough of a greased cookie sheet. To each cookie press a dab of caramel on top. Bake 10 - 12 minutes.

Recipe courtesy of Demetria Dixon ©2005