Spiced Caramel Pear Cookie Cups

A friend of mine recently brought me some really interesting preserves. While most folks would likely just have the preserves with their morning toast, my first thought was “what type of cookies can I make?” Since this spiced caramel pear preserves were something special, I wanted that to be the highlight of the cookie. Cookie cups were the perfect solution, just needed to find the right base.

This cookie base was originally part of a lemon curd-based cookie cup. The jar of preserves I had was small and I thought that it would make about 24 cookies. I knew I had other preserves on hand if needed. Well, this recipe made nearly 4 dozen cookies, and I used lots of different preserves! The cookies were perfect and will likely be the base for many cookies to come.

The base is so simple, make the dough, shape into balls, place in mini muffin cups, and bake. You don’t even need to make an indentation until after the cookies come out of the oven, which is very convenient. I let them cool a bit in the pan and then they came out, no problem at all! I did not need to worry about them being fussy. The spiced caramel pear preserves were the icing on the cake, sweet with interesting notes of pear, spices, and a subtle caramel flavor.

Spiced Caramel Pear Cookie Cups
1 cup butter, room temperature
1¼ cups sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Spiced Caramel Pear Preserves

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a mini muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar and beat on medium until light. Add the egg and vanilla and mix again to combine. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, stirring until the dough comes together.

Shape the dough into 1” balls and place in the prepared mini muffin tin.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until golden. Once the cookies come out of the oven, make an indentation in each cookie with a tart tamper or similar tool. Allow to cool for 10 minutes and then remove the cookie cups from the mini muffin pan.

Once the cookie cups are cool, fill each with a small amount of caramel pear jam. 

Cookie recipe from Six Sisters’ Stuff