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

Salted Caramel Pretzel Brownies

We had some pretzels in the kitchen and I thought that it would be a good idea to look for recipes that used pretzels. I don’t know if you are like out family, but we buy pretzels, eat some of them, and then the rest linger on the counter until they go stale. I try not to be wasteful, but I can only eat so many pretzels. I guess I should buy those small individual packages, but they sure cost a lot more than the regular-sized bags.

Pretzels can be used in a number of different ways; in this case, the form the base of the brownies. I made the base by crushing the pretzels in the food processor, and then added the remaining crust ingredients. I pressed them in the pan fairly well, but the base becomes more stable once you add the brownie batter and bake everything together.

The original recipe had you make your own caramel, but I used purchased caramel sauce. Sometimes I have success making caramel and sometimes it end up being a big mess! I topped the bars with caramel and Hawaiian sea salt and refrigerated them for 24 hours. The caramel seemed thick but as soon as I took the bars out of the refrigerator to cut them, the caramel was everywhere. These are so messy and sticky, but they are also so tasty! I guess I can handle some stickiness in exchange for such a tasty brownie.

Salted Caramel Pretzel Brownies
1 cup crumbled pretzels
75 grams butter , melted
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

160 grams butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup caramel sauce
Coarse salt

Heat the oven to 390 degrees. Line an 8” square pan with aluminum foil.

Mix together the pretzels, melted butter and brown sugar in a small bowl. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and pack it down evenly.

Bake for 8 minutes; make the brownies while the base is baking.

In a medium saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the butter melts. Make sure that the mixture doesn’t come to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the eggs, one at a time, and then stir in the vanilla. Add the flour and baking powder and stir just until the flour disappears.

Spread the brownie mixture over the partially baked crust.

Bake for 25-28 minutes, until a thin knife inserted into the brownies comes out clean or with a few crumbs. Allow the brownies to cool completely.

Once the brownies are completely cool, top with about 1 cup of caramel sauce, then sprinkle with salt. Refrigerate the brownies for at least two hours before cutting. When cutting the brownies, dip the knife in hot water after each cut, which will make for cleaner edges.

Recipe from The Brick Kitchen

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies

I really need to get back in the swing of baking, but now that my schedule is getting back to normal, I am very hopeful that will happen. My husband sent me this recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies, as he knows that we both love sticky toffee pudding. He asked if I had dates, a critical ingredient, and I did. I typically buy chopped dates, since dates are so sticky, but I had whole dates. For this recipe, that was fine as it all goes into the food processor.

This is a different method of making cookies than I am used to. You mix the flour in the mixer bowl and then handle the wet ingredients in the food processor, then mix the two together to make a dough. It worked fine, although I think if you quizzed someone about whether these contain dates, they may not know as they aren’t obvious.

I used fairly small caramels that I had bought at a local fair, which were about 2 centimeters square. I cut them in half and that was great for these cookies. If you have larger caramels, then adjust accordingly. You are supposed to roll the dough balls in sugar, but I forgot and they seemed to turn out fine. These taste so much like sticky toffee pudding, with the wonderful dates and the spices, and the caramel adds that sticky element that makes it that much more special.

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies
235 grams flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon grated nutmeg
85 grams dates, roughly chopped
67 grams sugar
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
¼ cup molasses
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
170 grams butter, melted and cooled slightly
Soft caramels, cut in pieces

In a large mixer bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg; set aside. In a food processor, combine the dates, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, egg, and vanilla. Pulse until smooth (or nearly smooth). Add the butter and pulse again, until the ingredients come together.

Add the date mixture to the flour mixture in the mixer bowl. With the mixer running on medium-low, stir until the dough comes together, scraping down the bowl with a spatula as needed. Once the dough forms, refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into 24 balls, each about 1-1/2” inches. Place a piece of caramel into the top of each cookie, flattening the dough slightly.

Bake for 8-9 minutes, until the cookie looks set. The caramel will be molten at this point, so be careful. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Hailee Catalano

Caramel Marshmallow Cookie Bars

While I know that not everyone is back in the full swing of baking and that sort of thing, it’s been cold here and that just makes me want to bake! I was basically housebound for a couple of days, and I asked my husband which of several recipes I should make. He chose these, and I agreed!

These cookies are quite different from anything I had made before. I looked through the ingredients and realized that I had most of the needed ingredients, but not in the quantity that I needed. That’s always a problem that I face when I bake! I had mini marshmallows and caramel bits, and they don’t last forever, so I was eager to use them as soon as I could. I ended up making a half quantity of these bars. I made this in an 8” square pan, which was very close to half of the size of the 9” x 13” pan. The main difference is the baking time might vary by a minute or two, so if you decided to use a different pan, please keep that in mind.

The dough came together with little issue, although it looks a little lumpy in the beginning. You bake the bars and the top them and broil. I didn’t need all of the mini marshmallows I had, so just use what you need. These bars are extremely sticky, so a knife that you warm up is very helpful. These bars taste a lot like smores, because of the toasted marshmallow, even though they contain no chocolate. These bars are very tasty but they dry out quickly, so make sure you eat them right away!

Caramel Marshmallow Cookie Bars
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/3 cups flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
11 ounces caramel bits
10 ounces mini marshmallows

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until light. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then mix in the vanilla. Add the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and mix on low until almost incorporated. Add the 1 cup of caramel bits and 1 cup of marshmallows and stir with a spatula until the dough is fully together and the caramel and marshmallows are evenly distributed.

Spread the dough into the prepared pan, making sure that the mixture is even.

Bake for 20-22 minutes, until set and beginning to turn golden brown.

As soon as the pan comes out of the oven, turn the oven off and turn on the broiler.

Top the bars with the remaining caramel bits and mini marshmallows. Return the pan to the broiler and broil until the marshmallows look toasted. This might be 30 seconds or up to 2 minutes. Keep watch on the marshmallows to ensure that they don’t burn. Once the marshmallows are toasted, remove the pan from the broiler.

Allow the bars to cool before cutting into squares.

Recipe from Will Cook for Smiles

Apple Caramel Oatmeal Cookies

I think there is little more evocative of fall than apples, oats, and caramel. Put them all together in one cookie and I knew it would be fantastic. I will admit that the recipe I have included below is the version of the cookie. The first batch I followed the original recipe more closely, which included caramel bits. I have caramel bits, but they were very old and hard as a rock, even after baking. I also topped the cookies with caramel sauce, which just disappeared into the cookies. Time to try again.

I had all of the ingredients to make a second batch, but this time I left out the caramel bits. I changed the glaze to a powdered sugar icing with some caramel sauce whisked in. Both of those changes helped, and the cookies turned out wonderfully. The original recipe called for diced apples, but I used the diced cinnamon apples from Nuts.com. The apples are dried and perfect for baking. Of course, you can also use diced fresh apples.

These cookies are so good, and the change of the glaze means that they aren’t nearly as sticky as the first batch. The diced cinnamon apples are fantastic, and they melt into the cookie. I would like to find a cake recipe where I can use them again. This is honestly one of the best cookies for fall- the combination of apples and caramel in an oatmeal cookie is perfect.

Apple Caramel Oatmeal Cookies
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups oats
3/4 cup Diced cinnamon apples

1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons caramel sauce
 
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until combined. Add the egg and brown sugar and mix on medium to incorporate. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Turn the mixer on low and stir until the flour almost disappears into the dough. Add the oats and diced cinnamon apple and stir to distribute throughout the dough.

Using a medium (1-1/2 tablespoons) cookie scoop to shape the dough into balls and place on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the cookies slightly with the palm of your hand. Refrigerate the dough balls for 10 minutes, to help reduce spreading.

Bake the cookies for 9-11 minutes, until golden along the edges. The tops of the cookies may look slightly wet but will set as the cookies cool. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cool, make the glaze. In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon milk. Add the caramel sauce and whisk again. Add additional milk if needed to get the glaze to drizzling consistency. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from Will Cook for Smiles

Caramel Anzac Slice

ANZAC Day, a day of remembrance for Australian and New Zealanders, is celebrated on April 25. I have made ANZAC biscuits before, but came across this bar cookie version and couldn’t wait to try them. Noting that ANZAC Day isn’t celebrated until April 25, I had to wait to make these cookies. Since the 25th doesn’t fall on a Friday this year, I had to either post them early or late, but I figure I am pretty close. As an uninformed American, I had never heard of ANZAC Day prior to my first trip to the UK, but have learned that the world is full of celebrations.

The original recipe, as it comes from Australia, has some difference. If I see “slice,” I know that it is an Australian bar cookie. I expect the measurements to be by weight rather than volume. Also, this recipe uses desiccated coconut, which is different from the coconut you get in American stores. It is unsweetened and a finer cut, and can often be found in health food stores. You can always put the coconut you have on hand into a food processor to make it a finer cut.

This recipe called for a 20 x 30-centimeter pan, and I do have a 20 x 29-centimeter tart pan that works. Thankfully these bars are fairly thin! The original recipe also had you make your own caramel from sweetened condensed milk, but mine burned so I ended up buying some caramel sauce to use. Perhaps it was more fluid, but it worked. These bars cut easier if they are cold, but that may be because of the sticky caramel sauce. While these are messy, the flavors they contain can’t be beat. The caramel is a good addition to traditional Anzac biscuits, and this bar cookie version can’t be beat.

Caramel Anzac Slice
125 grams butter
120 grams golden syrup
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon boiling water
80 grams oats
150 grams flour
60 grams brown sugar
60 grams desiccated coconut
Caramel sauce

35 grams desiccated coconut
40 grams oats
50 grams brown sugar
30 grams butter, melted

Heat the oven to 320 degrees. Line a 20 x 30-centimeter pan (or something close) with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and golden syrup over low heat. Once the mixture is melted and smooth, dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water to dissolve. Stir the baking soda into the melted butter mixture and remove from the heat. In the same saucepan, stir in the oats, flour, brown sugar, and desiccated coconut. Press the mixture into the base of the prepared pan.

Bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.

Once the bars come out of the oven, spread with an even layer of caramel sauce. In a separate bowl, combine the desiccated coconut, oats, brown sugar, and melted butter. Stir to create a crumb-like mixture. Sprinkle the topping over the caramel, pressing down slightly.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until bubbly. Allow the bars to come to room temperature and then place in the refrigerator to chill for several hours. Once the bars are cold, remove from the pan and cut into squares.

Recipe from The Annoyed Thyroid

Salted Caramel Cookie Bars

I was looking for something different to bake, and also looking for a recipe that I could adapt to be gluten free. I chose these, although I also realized that I was trying to avoid chocolate, but I seemingly can’t think of too many things at once! The original recipe had caramel bits and chocolate chips, and I thought that using the salted caramel chocolate chips would be perfect.

Making these cookies gluten free wasn’t too hard, as I have a gluten free flour mix that I try to always have on hand. Also, I realized that our nonstick cooking spray for baking was not gluten free, so I had to check ingredients on the other cooking spray I have to be safe. It would be terrible to make something gluten free and then use cooking spray with flour, making the recipe decidedly not free from gluten.

I will say, that these cookies weren’t my greatest triumph. Perhaps if you can’t have gluten you wouldn’t notice much? The chips I used were sweetened with Stevia, and that also added a different flavor. Sometimes items with specialty flavors use artificial extracts and they are never quite right. These cookies had a slight oddness with the first bite, but then it lessened. My husband thinks that they grow on you, and you’re fine after tasting one cookie. I’m not sure. They would be tasty with traditional flour and the original combination of chocolate chips and caramel bits.

Salted Caramel Cookie Bars
½ cup butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ cups salted caramel chocolate chips   
1 cup chopped toasted pecans
½- 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In a small saucepan, over low heat, melt the butter. Continue cooking over low heat until the butter begins to brown and smell nutty. The butter can burn quickly, so don’t look away. Once browned, transfer the butter to a large mixer bowl and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Once the butter has cooled slightly, add the sugar and brown sugar and mix on medium to combine. Add the egg and vanilla and stir to incorporate. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour. Stir in the salted caramel chocolate chips and toasted pecans with a spatula.

Press the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the top of the bars begins to turn golden. Once the bars come out of the oven, sprinkle with kosher salt.

Allow to cool before removing the bars from the pan and cutting into squares.

Recipe from Miss in the Kitchen

Salted Caramel Truffle Cookies

I have gone from looking for recipes that make a small quantity, but this time I wanted to make something that wasn’t too perishable, since I wanted them to last. It seems like the softer the cookie, the quicker it turns, so anything with fresh fruit, applesauce, pumpkin and that sort of thing is tricky. This recipe seemed good: it’s a variation of a chocolate chip cookie with chopped pretzels and the salted caramel filled baking truffles. Thankfully I had picked those up when I first saw them.

The original recipe called for the cookies to be baked for a shorter time at 375 degrees. I did one sheet of cookies at that temperature, but I think the cookies browned too quickly. Since most cookies bake at 350 degrees, I decided to try that. I had to bake my cookies for 12 minutes, but I think that the lower temperature resulted in a better cookie. A few cookies looked under baked, but they continued cooking and set up after they cooled.

Another change that I made to this recipe was the amount of pretzels in the dough. The recipe called for 3-1/2 cups (!) of chopped pretzels, which I think is ridiculous. I had some small bags of pretzels and I ended up using about a cup of those. When everything was said and done, I think that was the correct amount. The pretzels add a perfect saltiness to the cookies. The chocolate chunks are decadent, which is off set by the salt in the dough. These are simple, but really great!

Salted Caramel Truffle Cookies
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup mini pretzels, chopped
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 2/3 cups Sea Salt Caramel Filled Baking Truffles*

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. Chop the mini pretzels and set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla on medium until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture. When the flour is almost fully incorporated into the dough, stir in the chopped pretzels and the sea salt caramel baking truffles.

Drop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, using about 1-1/2 tablespoons of dough per cookie.

Bake for 11-13 minutes, until golden around the edges. The centers may seem slightly under baked, but will continue to cook as they cool. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Nestle- The Very Best Baking

*This is a specialty item, and likely won’t always be available. You could use chocolate chunks, or a combination of chocolate chunks and some caramel bits to capture similar flavors.

Samoa-Inspired Bars

I know that it’s a long way from Girl Scout Cookie season, but I see recipes and I am always curious how they will turn out. Usually, I end up not making Samoas (aka Caramel DeLites) because of having to roll out dough or some other complexity like that. This is a bar cookie, and I figured I could handle that a little better. In the end I did make some changes for simplicity sake, to make the cookies more “true to form,” but yes, I really just made the change as it was easier.

This is not a quick cookie to make. You end up making them over two days, with lots of time for the bars to chill between steps. You also get to make caramel, which can be fussy. This made a larger quantity which works better, plus I had some heavy cream to use up. I had a newer candy thermometer that works great, and that has helped a lot with my uncertainty in making caramel. It doesn’t rest on the bottom of the pan and give a false reading, and is otherwise easy to use. It doesn’t fog up like my old one did!

The original recipe had you cut the bars and then dip the base in melted chocolate, then flip them upside down to set the chocolate. That seemed needlessly complicated, especially since Samoas are known for the chocolate stripes on top. Since it is difficult to cut chocolate stripes, I cut the bars and then drizzled with chocolate and that was perfect. Do store these in the refrigerator; some of the edges were on a plate on the counter and they became a big, caramel mess. (Still tasty though!) They are the perfect combination of shortbread, caramel, coconut and a hint of chocolate. While I don’t equate them to eating a Samoa cookie, they are still wonderful.

Samoa-Inspired Bars
1 cup butter, room temperature
113 grams powdered sugar
240 grams flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

½ cup butter
170 grams heavy cream
300 grams sugar
156 grams light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
50 grams coconut flakes

¾ cup chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vegetable shortening

Line a 9” square pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium mixer bowl, beat the butter until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and beat on medium until smooth. With the mixer running on low, mix in the flour, salt, and vanilla. Press the dough into the prepared pan and prick the dough with a fork. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Bake the shortbread for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown around the edges. Allow to cool completely before moving on to the next step.

Make the caramel: in a medium saucepan over medium low heat, melt the butter. When the butter is nearly melted, add the heavy cream to warm it. Set aside. In a separate saucepan, combine the sugar and light corn syrup over medium low heat, stirring frequently until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Do not stir, instead swirl the pan to encourage even cooking. After about 10 minutes, the mixture will turn an amber color. At the point, remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the butter/heavy cream mixture.

Add a candy thermometer to the pan and return the pan to medium-high heat. Stir the mixture frequently until the thermometer reaches 248 degrees. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour the caramel over the shortbread base and the sprinkle with the coconut, stirring gently to distribute them evenly. Allow the bars to come to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.

To finish: remove the bars from the pan and peel away the foil. Cut the bars into small squares.
Melt the chocolate and vegetable shortening in the microwave, stirring the mixture every 30 seconds. Transfer the mixture into a piping bag and cut off a small piece of the tip. Drizzle the chocolate over the bars in a diagonal pattern. Refrigerate the bars until the chocolate is set.

Store the bars in the refrigerator, but allow them to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.

Recipe from Sloane’s Table

Browned Butter Peanut Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

A while ago, I picked up a bag of Nestle Mix-ins, which was a combination of chocolate chips, caramel pieces, and peanuts. Previously, I had only seen holiday themed varieties, and that just wasn’t right at the time. I knew I could do something with this combination and took them home with me. They have been in the kitchen and my husband sent me a couple of recipes that we thought we could adapt to what we had. This one was great as it had many of the same elements. My bag of mix-ins was 225 grams, which was less than the 425 grams in the original recipe. I added some chopped chocolate, and if I would have had peanuts on hand that would have also been good. They were absolutely fine as they were.

The first step of this recipe is to make a simple caramel by melting sugar. I’ll be honest, caramel can be fussy. Sometimes the sugar burns before it melts! This time I stirred the sugar when partially melted, and this helped so that nothing burned. It cooled beautifully on the baking sheet. When you bash it up or cut it up, the pieces are quite sharp! They also break and go everywhere, so now my kitchen is covered with shards of sticky caramel.

The original recipe warns that you shouldn’t refrigerate these much longer than the two hours specified in the recipe, as they caramel starts to soften. I baked the cookies in two halves, one after two hours and the next day. Honestly, I didn’t notice much of a difference. It didn’t seem like the caramel softened, and the cookies retained their crunch. The caramel bits on the edges of the cookies do get a little oddly shaped, but you can quickly reshape the cookies while they are warm. These cookies have a great combination of different flavors, and each bite is a little different. I’d be curious how tasty they are with even more peanuts, but they are great as it is.

Browned Butter Peanut Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies
200 grams sugar

225 grams butter
150 grams sugar
150 grams brown sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
350 grams flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
225 grams/1 package Nestle Chocolate/Peanut/Caramel Mix-ins
125 grams dark chocolate, chopped

Make the caramel: place the 200 grams of sugar in a medium-large saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat, until the sugar is melted. I found it best to stir the sugar once it was partially melted, otherwise it could burn. When melted, the sugar will be a deep amber color. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat. Allow to cool for 30 minutes, until it hardens.

Make the cookie dough: in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Once the butter has melted, continue to cook the butter, stirring occasionally, until the butter smells nutty and is golden brown. Don’t look away as the mixture can go from golden to burnt very quickly. Pour the browned butter and any browned bits into a bowl and cool for 10 minutes.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the browned butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium to combine. Add the eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla and stir to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add the Nestle mix-ins and chopped chocolate. Bash/chop the cooled caramel into small pieces and add to the dough. Stir on low until the additional ingredients are incorporated.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for two hours.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into mounds, about 1-1/2 tablespoons and place on the prepared baking sheets. I placed about 8 cookie per baking sheet, so they would have space.

Bake for 12-16 minutes, until set. You don’t want to over bake the cookies, as the caramel gives the cookies a good crunch. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from The Boy who Bakes

Salted Caramel Oat Bars

I hadn’t made bar cookies in a couple of weeks, so that was my plan for this week. As you can tell, I don’t really plan all that much. I try not to make very similar recipes two weeks in a row, but that’s about as complex as it gets. I had pinned this recipe a week ago and I thought it would be good. When I checked the ingredients, I found that I needed only two items: sweetened condensed milk and butterscotch chips. I stopped to get them one day, but they didn’t have butterscotch chips. That made me think of what other possibilities there are for this recipe.

A while ago, when I was searching for dairy-free chips, my husband found white and caramel chips online that didn’t contain dairy. They are also Kosher, and likely free of dairy in order to not mix meat and dairy. I have used the white chips in a couple of applications, but I had yet to try the caramel chips. I looked at this recipe and I was certain that caramel chips would work just as well as butterscotch chips. Salted caramel is certainly more common that salted butterscotch!

These bars came easily, and the caramel chips melted as easily as butterscotch chips. The original recipe said to build up the sides of the base to help enclose the filling. If you can, this is a good idea as any part of the filling that touch the sides of the pan became a very sticky situation. The bars are fairly soft and sticky, and I stored them in the refrigerator to help. I do think that I would make the base thinner, as it seems too thick. Other than that, I really like the change of using caramel chips, which pairs well with the oats and spices in these bars.

Salted Caramel Oat Bars
¾ cup packed brown sugar
12 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
2¼ cup old-fashioned oats, divided
½ cup chopped, toasted pecans
¾ teaspoon salt, divided
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 package caramel or butterscotch chips
Additional salt

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the brown sugar and butter on medium until light. Add the egg and vanilla and mix on medium to combine. With the mixer running on low, stir in the flour, 2 cups oats, pecans, ½ teaspoon salt, baking powder, and cinnamon.

Press about 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.

Make the filling: in a large microwave-safe bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, chips, and ¼ teaspoon salt. Heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture is smooth. Pour the filling on top of the oat/flour base. Crumble the remaining oat/flour mixture on top of the melted chips. You do not need to cover the filling completely. Sprinkle the bars with the remaining ¼ cup oats.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the bars are bubbly and begin to brown. Remove from the oven and cool completely. Sprinkle with additional salt before cutting into bars.

Recipe from An Edible Mosaic

Caramel Toffee Pumpkin Cookies

If you know anything about me, you may likely know that I don’t really like pumpkin pie. This time of year, I come across many recipes that use pumpkin, but they aren’t really my favorite. I find that when you use pumpkin or other similar ingredients, they add too much moisture to the dough, and the cookies are soft and even sticky. That’s not the texture I care for, so I am extremely careful when looking at any recipe that contains pumpkin.

But when is pumpkin not pumpkin? I often make sweet potato pie as I like that more than pumpkin pie (but let’s be honest, I usually make apple pie). In my cupboard I have canned sweet potato, and I thought about using that in a pumpkin cookie recipe. It should work! From the can, sweet potato puree and pumpkin puree look the same and have those great scents of fall. It’s a little strange to use potato in a cookie, but not too bad when you consider it an alternative to pumpkin.

Looking at the original picture of these, I knew they wouldn’t be sticky or cakey. They were thin and soft, but still had a good chew. They mix together quickly and don’t require any refrigeration, which was convenient. It’s a little difficult to tell when these cookies brown, but they do start to color a bit. The cookies will be puffed when removed from the oven, but then flatten into a nice flat cookie, sprinkled with toffee flecks. The cookies are soft but retain a nice chew. They taste like fall, but with a subtle pumpkin/sweet potato flavor!

Caramel Toffee Pumpkin Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin/sweet potato puree
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup toffee bits
1/2 cup caramel bits

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until light. Add the pumpkin and vanilla and mix on medium to incorporate. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt, mixing until the dough almost comes together. Add the toffee bits and caramel bits and stir them into the dough using a spatula.

Scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, so that each mound of dough is about 1-1/2” wide.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies begin to brown. The cookies will be puffy when removed from the oven but will flatten as they cool. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from The Chunky Chef

White Chocolate and Caramel Blondies

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I am SO looking forward to a time when I can go out and do things and see people. I am fortunate that my job continues, but I miss many parts of life before lock down. I am hopeful that the vaccine will be what we are waiting for and folks I know are starting to get their doses. I can’t wait to go to a restaurant, to a shop, to see my parents, or to travel. I hope we have started to turn the tide.

I had some white chocolate that I wanted to use in a recipe, so I went searching for some different options. It’s not unusual that I bake with white chocolate, but it can be so sweet that it is critical to mix it with other flavors. I thought about some sort of white chocolate blondie, and I found a couple of ideas. I ended up choosing this one, as it also contained caramel, and I had some of that remaining in the refrigerator. This recipe ended up calling for more white chocolate than I originally had, but it was just the perfect amount for that opened bag of white chocolate chips I had!

As this is a British recipe, the measurements are in grams. This is more accurate, and if you don’t have a metric scale, I really encourage you to get one! You can also use Google to get equivalents, but that lacks some of the sparkle. It seems like most things I make these days is quick, and this is no exception. Swirling the caramel on top of the bars will look different, depending on how much you swirl it about. To avoid too much stickiness, I decided to refrigerate the bars before cutting. That does make the bars quite solid, but it takes care of the bars being too sticky to cut. These bars are on the sweet side, but the caramel adds other flavors as well. Perhaps I would use one less egg, as US eggs are typically bigger than UK eggs, but really, I wouldn’t change much.

White Chocolate and Caramel Blondies
200 grams butter, melted and slightly cooled
125 grams sugar
125 grams brown sugar
3 eggs
275 grams flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
200 grams white chocolate Chips
150 grams caramel sauce

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” square pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, bear the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until smooth. Add the eggs and beat on medium again, until incorporated. Add the flour and cornstarch and mix on low to combine. Fold in the white chocolate chips.

Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan. Top with dollops of caramel sauce and swirl the caramel through the batter.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until they are set along the edges. The center may still be slightly soft. Cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into blondies.

Recipe from Jane’s Patisserie

Peanut Butter Caramel Pretzel Cups

Knowing that I had pretzels remaining as well as some leftover Halloween candy, I went looking for a recipe where I could use them. I have made many cookie cups for this blog and they are one of my favorite things to bake. When I came across this recipe, which is cookie dough, stuffed with a peanut butter cup, topped with caramel and a pretzel, I knew that I couldn’t go wrong.

Since these cookies bake in a regular-sized muffin tin, they do make big cookies. Thankfully, the recipe only makes a dozen, which is somehow better. I didn’t change anything from the recipe with the exception of the caramel- I used a prepared caramel sauce rather than making my own by melting down caramels. The prepared sauce is a lot easier, but it doesn’t firm up quite as much. Ultimately, these cups are on the messy side because of that.

Despite having several steps, this cookie is very easy to make. I liked not having to measure the dough between the muffin pans. I just guessed and had a little dough left, so I added a bit more to the smaller ones. The baking time is best calculated by when the edges of the cookies are golden. If they are slightly under baked it works out in the end as you press down the cookie with a peanut butter cup. These are said to mimic a Take 5 candy bar, and they are pretty close. Not nearly as close as the Take 5 candy that my dad makes, but very tasty!

Peanut Butter Caramel Pretzel Cups
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 peanut butter cups (snack size, not miniature)
12 mini pretzels
Caramel sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a standard muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until light. Add the egg and vanilla and stir to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, salt, and baking soda and stir until the dough comes together.

Divide the dough between the 12 indentations in the muffin pan.

Bake for about 14-16 minutes, until the edges of the cookie cups are golden.

Once the cookies come out of the oven, top each with a peanut butter cup, pressing the cup into the cookie until the cup is lower than the edge of the cookie. Place the muffin tin in the refrigerator and allow the chocolate to set.

Once the chocolate has set, remove the cookies from the pan and transfer to a wire rack. Spoon a small amount of caramel on top of each cookie, and then press a pretzel into the caramel. Allow the caramel to set before serving.

Recipe from Lovely Little Kitchen

Pretzel Caramel Thumbprints

When my husband and I visited my parents a while ago, they sent us home with all sorts of things. I made a couple of different things with Kit Kats, which I posted over the summer. They had also sent us home with pretzels, as they had bought a big container. I had planned to make these cookies, but in the end, we ate the pretzels. Oops! I recently purchased some more pretzels so I could make this and other recipes.

 From not liking thumbprint cookies as a kid, I sure make a lot more of them now. There can be so many flavors incorporated into a thumbprint that I find them to be endlessly interesting. This version is a fairly standard cookie dough that is paired with crushed pretzels and a filling of caramel. How could you go wrong? With my fresh bag of pretzels, I made these right away.

 As I am doing smaller batch baking, I halved this recipe, which made about 15 cookies. The only difference in the cookie recipe is the inclusion of honey. Since we have local honey farmers around us, I had recently stocked up on honey. The cookies work well, and they are just sticky enough that the pretzel crumbs cling with no issue. The cookies are a little flatter than I’d like, but not too bad. Since they are on the flatter side, a little caramel goes a long way, so don’t fill the cookies too much! I added just a little salt, but it certainly packs a punch! The caramel is a little bit messy, so best to eat these at home.

Pretzel Caramel Thumbprints
1 cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups pretzels, processed into crumbs
Caramel
Sea Salt

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light. Add the eggs, honey, and vanilla and stir to combine. Add the flour and salt and stir on low until the dough comes together. The dough will be soft. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into 1-1/4” balls and roll the balls in the pretzel crumbs. Place on the prepared baking sheets and make an indentation in each cookie, with your thumb or the end of a wooden spoon.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until golden. Reshape the thumbprint when the cookies come out of the oven. Allow to cool before filling with caramel.

Fill the thumbprints with a spoonful of caramel and sprinkle with sea salt.

Recipe from Big Green House