Peanut Butter Cookie Cups with Salted Caramel Filling

The recipe I followed went with regular peanut butter cookies where you make a small indentation, then fill it with caramel after baking.  This did not work for me.  The cookies didn’t keep their indentation, so I needed to fine another method.  Luckily, I made these peanut butter cup treats last year, so I used the mini muffin tin method.  This worked perfectly!  All you need to do is break off a small piece of dough, and fit it into the tin, leaving a small indentation.  After pulling them out of the oven, reinforce that indentation, and it will remain there while cooling.  Once the cookies were cool, I filled them with the salted peanut caramel, let them cool a bit more, then drizzled chocolate over them.  It’s nice to have a bite-size dessert, and these would be great for parties because they’re so easy to grab.  These were definitely a hit!  I used the well-known flourless peanut butter cookies, but feel free to use your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe!

For the peanut butter cookies: 

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix all ingredients together.  Divide the dough into tablespoon-size pieces and place in a mini-muffin pan.  Make a small indentation in the dough.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.  Press down on the middle of the cookies to make sure the indentation stays.  Once cool, lift them from the tin.  Pour the salted peanut caramel in the well of each cookie.  Allow to cool, then drizzle with melted chocolate.

For the salted peanut caramel:

 1 cup (250ml) heavy cream

 1/2 cup (125ml) water

 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar

 1 tablespoon light corn syrup or glucose

 1/8 teaspoon coarse salt

 3/4 cup (100g) finely chopped roasted salted peanuts

 optional: 4 ounces bittersweet, semisweet, or milk chocolate, melted

Make the salted peanut caramel by warming the cream in a saucepan or microwave, and setting it aside.Cook the water, 1 cup sugar, corn syrup, and salt to a caramel, gently swirling the pan only if necessary (to ensure it melt and cooks evenly) until it turns a nice golden brown.  

Remove from heat and immediately whisk in the hot cream in a slow, steady stream. Cool until warm and pourable, then add the chopped peanuts. Spoon some of the caramel into each cookie, letting it set for about an hour, if you want to drizzle them with chocolate.

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