I started working on this recipe the first week we moved into our new house, back when our little lemon tree was brimming with cute yellow fruits and I just wanted to use them all up right then. They started as a lemon chamomile cookie, but this is the part of the story where we discovered that those adorable lemons had been hanging out on that tree for a very long time and the zest was not giving a desirable flavor. In short, the cookies tasted like soap. So we moved on, I kind of forgot about the recipe for a few months, we pruned back the lemon tree, life continued on. And then a couple weeks ago, I was looking for something to do with a bowl of oranges sitting on my counter and a bag of white chocolate I found in the back of the pantry. These bright, floral, caramelized cookies were born and they are beautiful.

This base of this recipe is a sugar cookie that I adapted from Amy Ho at Constellation Inspiration. While creaming the butter and sugar, a bunch of orange zest and a bag of earl grey tea is added so that all of those oils and flavors are absorbed into the fat. Then, your regular cast of characters make an appearance…eggs, flour, leavening agents, salt, and finally little bits of caramelized white chocolate. They are chewy on the inside, with buttery, crispy edges and you’ll want to eat the whole tray in one sitting.

how to caramelize white chocolate

The first time I caramelized white chocolate was for this recipe and it was so fun! I’d been seeing it all over my Instagram and my FOMO was real. I am not a huge regular white chocolate fan, but caramelized white chocolate is something I can get behind. The lack of flavor in regular white chocolate is not an issue with CWC, because all of those milk solids are slowly caramelized, resulting in something very similar to dulce de leche.

Caramelizing white chocolate is very similar to toasting sugar. You preheat the oven to 250° F and spread chopped white chocolate over a small baking sheet. Then you bake the chocolate for an hour or so, stirring it with an offset spatula every 10 minutes. The mixture will start to get a bit grainy, but as it continues to heat, it should smooth out. (If it doesn’t, you can add a bit of water to help it loosen up). The color of the chocolate will go from creamy white to light tan, and just like a regular caramel, the darkness is up to you. When the chocolate is deeply golden and silky smooth, take it out of the oven and let it cool completely to re-solidify. Then, chop the caramel into chunks and stir it into your cookie dough. Voila!

My friend Zoe who runs Salted Honey, wrote a really great in-depth post on caramelizing white chocolate and I highly recommend you hop over and give it a read before getting started!