Caramel Stuffed Mocha Cookies

At the beginning of the month, once of the first things I made were the caramel stuffed apple cider cookies. It was a really nice coincidence that Spencer's Market had the caramels that I used on sale. I ordered two packages of the sampler packs, because I hadn't tried any of the other flavors. I opened the box and was wondering what I should do with the java flavored caramels. A little light went on in my head, and I decided to to put them inside mocha flavored cookies. I tweaked the recipe a little to add cocoa and espresso. The cookies were by no means perfect. I sprinkled a little extra sugar on top because they didn't seem near as sweet as the apple cider dough (which in retrospect makes total sense since the concentrated cider have tons of sugar in them). If you want to try them, I replaced 1/4 cup of the flour with Valhrona cocoa and added 2 tablespoons of ground espresso. The coffee flavor went largely unnoticed, so next time I might even add a teaspoon or two of coffee extract. I might play with the ratios a bit more next time so that the cookies crack a little more on top too. But overall, I am fairly pleased with them. These cookies were a very decent attempt to bake, photograph, and write about something on a sick day when your head feels like it might explode. Here's to hoping this cold doesn't last for too long!