These caramel cookie clusters are the ultimate shortcut to bite-sized sweet treats. Take a handful of spiced Dutch schuddebuikjes (mini speculaas cookies), pieces of caramel fudge and coat them in rich chocolate. Suddenly, you’ve got clusters that taste like they came from a fancy bakery!
These caramel cookie clusters come together with just three ingredients, and deliver all the crunchy, chocolatey, fudgy goodness you could ask for.
Keep a batch stashed in the pantry for sudden cravings, or tie them up with a ribbon for the most irresistible homemade gifts.
Just three ingredients come together to create these irresistible clusters. Crunchy, chocolatey, and wonderfully fudgy in every bite. Follow the recipe card below for the full details.
BAKING TIP: Since this cluster recipe calls for minimal ingredients, it’s important to use high-quality ingredients for the best flavor and texture.
Schuddebuikjes (literally translated ‘shaking bellies’) are essentially the same as pepernoten but in a very small shape. You can easily replace them with chopped up cookies of your choice.
Melt two-thirds of the chocolate using a double boiler, then remove it from the heat and stir in the remaining chocolate until completely smooth. You will essentially be tempering the chocolate that way. (Check how to temper chocolate without a candy thermometer here).
Once the chocolate feels cool to the touch, mix in the Dutch cookies and fudge pieces so that they are fully coated.
Spoon the mixture into 20 mounds onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, and leave them to set completely in a cool place before serving.
BAKING TIP: Don’t store your cookie caramel clusters in the fridge for any extended time as the chocolate coating will ‘sweat’ which can make the texture less pleasant. If you’re in a rush to get these clusters to set, pop them into the fridge for a short time only.
Store these crunchy and fudgy clusters outside the fridge in an airtight container for up to at least 2 weeks.
Absolutely! Place them in a freezer-safe container or bag and store them in the freezer for up to three months. Take them out of the freezer a few hours before use so they can reach room temperature. This way, you can enjoy this treat for even longer!
Few treats come together as fast and effortlessly as homemade clusters; and they just happen to make the sweetest little gifts during the holidays. No wonder I can’t stop adding new ones to Laura’s Bakery!
I prefer to use milk chocolate or dark chocolate. I haven’t tried these clusters with white chocolate. If you do, let me know how they turn out.
When you use chocolate to make brownies and bars, or other sweet treats, the chocolate needs to be tempered. Tempering the chocolate hardens it nicely and doesn’t give it a white haze, but it does give it a crunchy bite. Just what you want! To learn more, check out this article on tempering without a thermometer.
Yes. Place the two-thirds of chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips) in a dry, microwave-safe bowl and heat on 50% power in 30-second bursts, stirring vigorously after each one. When only a few small lumps remain, stop and stir until the residual heat melts them completely. Mix in the rest of the chocolate and continue stirring until everything is melted.
Never let water or steam near the bowl, or the chocolate will seize and turn grainy, and you’ll have to start over with new chocolate.
Go ahead and use any small cookies or broken up cookies instead. Since schuddebuikjes are flavored with warm speculaas spices, it would be great to use something like Biscoff or make tiny Dutch pepernoten instead.
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