Wonderland Cookies

These Wonderland Cookies are like a theme park! Filled with crunchy pretzels and chewy caramel, they’re so fun to make and eat. This recipe is written for kids to follow and seek help for adult-supervision jobs. 

Makes 12 big cookies 

Ingredients

½ cup salted butter
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup white sugar
¾ cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
¾ cup pretzels, some crushed into bits
¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips
¼ cup caramel candies, each cut
into 4 pieces with scissors
¼ cup mini marshmallows, each cut into 4 pieces with scissors
½ cup colourful hard-shell chocolate candies

Directions

1. FIND YOUR PERSON Let’s make brown butter! To the saucepan, add the butter. Place the saucepan on your stove. Turn the stove to medium heat and gently melt the butter. Once the butter has melted, it will begin to foam. Using the mixing spoon, MIX it gently. Continue to cook the butter until it turns a caramel color and you see little flecks of brown. Watch it carefully. You don’t want it to burn! Using the oven mitts, carefully remove the saucepan from the heat. Yay! You’ve just made brown butter. Let the brown butter cool for 10 minutes.

2. To the small bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt. Using the whisk, WHISK until everything is combined. Set this bowl to the side.

3. To the large bowl, add the white sugar, light brown sugar and the cooled brown butter. Using the spatula, SCRAPE down the sides and bottom of the saucepan, adding every last drop to the bowl.

4. Using the electric mixer, BEAT on medium speed until the sugar and butter are combined, about 1 minute. Add the egg and BEAT on medium speed until everything is combined.

5. Add the flour mixture to the bowl with the sugar mixture. Using the mixing spoon, MIX until the ingredients clump together and you can no longer see the flour mixture. Add the pretzels, chocolate chips, caramels, mini marshmallows and ¼ cup of the hard-shell chocolate candies. MIX until everything is mixed in.

6. Pop the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge to firm up for 15 minutes.

7. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line the 2 cookie sheets with the parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

8. Using your HANDS, break off a piece of the cookie dough and roll it into a ball, a bit bigger than a Ping-Pong ball. Place it on 1 of the prepared cookie sheets. Repeat until you have 6 evenly spaced cookie dough balls on each sheet.

9. Press 2–3 of the remaining chocolate candies into the top of each cookie. So wonderful!

10. FIND YOUR PERSON Bake the cookies, 1 cookie sheet at a time, until golden brown, about 8–10 minutes.

11. FIND YOUR PERSON Using the oven mitts, carefully remove the cookie sheets from the oven and place them on the cooling racks. Let the cookies cool completely on the cookie sheets.

Save for later? Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Excerpted from Baking Wonderland by Jean Parker and Rachel Smith. Copyright © 2023 Jean Parker and Rachel Smith. Photographs by Reena Newman. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.