Chocolate Caramel Linzer Cookies

Chocolate caramel linzer cookies, made with no spread, soft chocolate sugar cookies, dulce de leche caramel filling, and chocolate royal icing. These make a delicious variation on classic linzer cookies, and you’ll love the combination of the sweet dulce de leche with the rich chocolate cookies.

You might also love this chocolate caramel toffee cake with caramel drip, caramel stuffed chocolate chip cookies, and no churn brownie sundae caramel swirl ice cream.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Chocolate & Caramel. Chocolate sandwich cookies with caramel filling is a dream combination. The chocolate is dark and rich and the caramel is sweet, buttery and creamy.

Standard Pantry Ingredients. You only need a simple list of ingredients from your fridge and pantry to make chocolate caramel linzer cookies.

Perfect for the Holidays. Linzer cookies are a classic holiday cookie to make for Christmas. Don’t miss these recipes for chocolate hazelnut linzer cookies, classic linzer cookies with bourbon cherry jam, and buttercream filled valentine linzer cookies.

No Spread Cookie Recipe. When making linzer cookies, you want to make sure that the shape of your cookie cutters is perfectly preserved, so you need to use a no spread sugar cookie recipe.

High Altitude Tested. Since these chocolate sugar cookies don’t contain any leavening, they’ll work at any altitude. But high altitude bakers can rest easy knowing that I test all the recipes on my site at Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

Cookies

For my no spread chocolate sugar cookies, you’ll just need all-purpose flour, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, salt, butter, vanilla extract and milk. This is an easy cookie dough to make, that comes together fast in a food processor.

Chocolate Icing

The icing is optional, but it makes these chocolate linzer cookies much prettier, since chocolate sugar cookies can look a bit dull on their own. You’ll essentially be making a really simple royal icing that dries to a pretty sheen. For the icing, you’ll need powdered sugar, cocoa powder, meringue powder (to set the icing), vanilla extract and warm water.

If you decide not to make the icing, simply dust the top cookies with powdered sugar (or even cocoa powder) before assembling the linzer cookies.

Filling

For the filling, use dulce de leche, a thick, creamy milk-based caramel. It won’t run off the cookies like caramel sauce will, making it ideal as filling for a chocolate sandwich cookie.

Instructions

Make the cookie dough.

• Prepare 1/2 Recipe Chocolate Sugar Cookie Dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
• Prep 2 baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper.

Roll, cut and chill the cookie dough.

• Working with half the dough at a time, roll the dough out on a floured surface to between 1/4 – 1/8 inch thick (closer to 1/8 inch), using a little more flour on top of the dough to keep it from sticking.
• Cut as many cookies as you can with a 2 1/2 inch round fluted cookie cutter, and place the cut cookies on the baking sheets, spaced 1-2 inches apart. Gather up the scraps, roll them out again, and continue to cut as many cookies as you can.
• Use a 1-inch cookie cutter, any shape you like, to cut the centers out of half the cookies. Depending on the thickness of the dough, you should be able to cut about 12-15 bottom cookies and 12-15 top cookies with a “window” or cutout.
• Place the baking sheets in the refrigerator to chill the cut cookies for 30 minutes. This will help maintain their shape so they don’t spread in the oven.

Bake the cookies.

• Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Bake the chilled cookies for about 8 – 8 1/2 minutes, until baked through. With chocolate sugar cookies, you won’t be able to tell by the color if the cookies are done baking, but if you gently turn one over with a spatula, there should be no appearance of raw or wet dough underneath. (If there are any areas on top of the cookies that have puffed or bubbled up, just gently press them flat again with the bottom of a spatula.)
• Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then gently transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing and filling.

Dip the top cookies in icing.

• In a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and meringue powder. Add the vanilla extract and water, and gently whisk until smooth, thick and drizzly. Take care not to whisk too hard, or you’ll incorporate air bubbles which will ruin the appearance of your icing.

• Take the top cookies (the ones with the cutout), gently dip the the tops of the cookies in the icing, and shake the excess icing back into the bowl. Set the iced cookies back down on a baking sheet. Immediately, before the icing sets, use a toothpick or cookie decorating scribe tool to smooth out the icing and pop any air bubbles. Finish dipping the top cookies in the icing.
• The icing will dry to the touch very quickly, but it takes a while to fully dry. You’ll need to wait an hour or two before assembling the linzer cookies, and at least six hours before you can stack the finished cookies.

Fill with dulce de leche.

• Turn the bottom cookies over, so the bottom side is facing up. With a small offset spatula, spread about 2 teaspoons dulce de leche onto each cookie.
• Assemble the linzer cookies by gently placing one of the iced top cookies on the dulce de leche, to make a sandwich cookie.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

How should I store chocolate caramel linzer cookies?

Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.  Once the icing is fully dry, you can stack the cookies in several layers, separating each layer with parchment paper.

What kind of dulce de leche did you use?

I use Nestle La Lechera Dulce de Leche. It’s thick but spreadable, so it stays perfectly put in the cookies.

Can I use caramel sauce instead of dulce de leche?

If you use caramel sauce instead of dulce de leche, just keep in mind that it tends to be runnier, and may run out of your cookies.

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