Um, these are definitely my new favorite cookie, and I’m not even joking.

Sorry vegan peanut butter cookies… you’ve been usurped. By chocolate. And caramel. And SEA SALT!!!

For realises though, I’m just now getting on this gravy train with putting salt on my cookies. AJ doesn’t really like it, so I’ve resisted for a while. But with these I just couldn’t help it. It sounded like it would go so well (and it’s pretty, to boot), so I just did it. And it was possibly the best decision I made all week.

Other good decisions include eating these as my second breakfast and eating these with a glass of almond milk. SO GOOD.

AJ and I (and Dedas, of course) actually just got back from one of our sunrise runs we’ve started to do this winter. We normally exercise in the afternoons/evenings after AJ gets home from work, but the city has been super lame lately and has been enforcing laws that say you can’t be out in the open spaces / trails after dark, and we really only like running on trails.

And when the sun goes down before 5 pm, and AJ doesn’t get home until 5:15….. it gets difficult to find the time for exercise. So we decided to try running in the morning, and it’s great! We leave the house around 5:45 am and can see where we’re going without lights by the time we’re halfway done.

The coolest thing is that we get to see the sun come up. Some mornings when there are clouds it’s just the prettiest thing ever – the sun turns the sky all sorts of orange and pink and yellow and it makes it so worth it to be out there in the cold at 6 o’clock in the morning.

I also love it because there’s really no decision to be made about being lazy. I set my clothes out the night before, and by the time I’m really awake enough to decide whether or not I want to be lazy and stay at home, I’m already outside and running. It’s great.

Anyway, that had nothing to do with cookies except for the fact that since we just went on a run, I now want like 3 of these cookies for my second breakfast. But unfortunately they all disappeared already. So sad!

I guess I’ll probably just have to make some more, and maybe bring them down to my parents for Christmas. They would love them – my mom is a die-hard chocolate fan, and my dad is a sucker for caramel (I seem to have inherited both of these fantastic traits).

And speaking of cookies, you have until Saturday to enter to win the KitchenAid giveaway over on my Vegan Shortbread post! Even if you already have a KitchenAid mixer, enter anyway. You could give it to your mom / sister / dad / best friend for Christmas and seriously be their favorite person ever.

AND you could even keep all the extra goodies that come with it. So cool!

Good luck to any of you who enter, and have a wonderful Thursday!

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp ground flax seed
• 6 Tbsp water
• 1/2 cup vegan butter (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• sea salt
• 8 tsp-sized pieces vegan caramel*

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment.
2. Combine the flax seed and water in a small bowl and set aside.
3. Melt the butter in the microwave in a large bowl. Add the brown sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla extract and stir to combine. Add the flax seed mixture and stir again. Add the cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder and stir until fully incorporated – this can take a while.
4. Finally, add the flour and chocolate chips at the same time and stir until just combined.
5. Scoop tablespoons of the dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Press a caramel into the top of each cookie. Use a spoon to scoop a little more dough on top of the caramel, then use your fingers to seal the dough around the caramel (greasing your fingers with a bit of spray oil helps with this).
6. Sprinkle a bit of sea salt on top of each cookie.
7. Bake for 9-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Enjoy!

Notes