Some people like cake. Some like pie. For others, it’s candy they crave. Me? I’m a cookie person through-and-through. Along with fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, my last meal (incase I’m ever in a last-meal-type-situation) would include homemade chocolate chip cookies and a carton of milk. Not those dry, sandy cookies either. Chewy or bust I say!
So when I first laid hand on a Panera Kitchen Sink Cookie, I fell immediately and madly in love with those larger-than-life, ooey, gooey, chewy rounds of chocolate and caramel studded bliss. I knew right then and there that I would have to come up with a copycat recipe since my nearest Panera is over 40 minutes away. Far too long to drive for a single cookie….right??
Right. So, after several delicious trial batches, my mom and I landed on a formulation that we humbly think surpasses the flavor and mimics the texture of Panera’s Kitchen Sink Cookies. Of course, we made ours a more gracious (smaller) cookie because the original is obscenely large and it’s way too tempting to eat the whole damn thing and then ask for another.
Prep Time:
Yield:
Print
PinDescription
A chewy, buttery cookie loaded with milk chocolate, dark chocolate, caramel, and pretzels based off of the famous Panera Kitchen Sink Cookie.
Ingredients
2 – 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup milk chocolate chunks (cut from a bar)
3/4 cup dark chocolate chunks (cut from a bar)
3/4 cup mini pretzels, chopped
10 werther’s soft chew caramels cut with kitchen shears into a bowl with some flour
flaked salt or course sea salt
Instructions
- Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
- Beat together softened butter, brown sugar, and white sugar with an electric mixer. Beat in vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until creamy.
- Mix in the flour mixture in three additions and stir just until the dough comes together.
- Add milk chocolate chunks, dark chocolate chunks, mini pretzel pieces and caramel pieces and stir into dough by hand.
- Cover and refrigerate for several hours up to 24 hours.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop cookie dough in golf ball sized balls onto the cookie sheet, leaving several inches in between each dough ball.
- Flatten dough balls slightly and sprinkle with the flaked salt.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes* or until the edges are turning golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on the baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
Notes
Baking time depends on the size of the dough balls and if you are baking them straight from the refrigerator or from room temp.
