Pumpkin Pie Cookies

These cookies are like little miniature pumpkin pies!  Each one contains its own small amount of pie filling and is quite delicious.  The original recipe I found these in calls for them to be shaped like pumpkins and have jack-o-lantern eyes and mouths cut into them, however, since it was after Halloween that I made them I went ahead and added white chocolate and caramel as decoration and they turned out just excellent!

No pictures of the mixing stage of the pastry, unfortunately  I realized too late that this dough needs refrigeration for 'several hours to overnight' so I was forced to make the dough quickly to give it time to rest.  It's fairly easy though. 

Mix the flour, sugar and salt with a fork, then add in butter and cut in with pastry mixer (or fork or potato masher if you're without) until there are no lumps of butter bigger than a pea.  After this, mix in just enough cold water until the dough holds together.  Probably best to just use your hands to mix at this point! Then divide the dough into two and wrap in plastic wrap as seen here, then pop it in the fridge for at least 2 hours. 

Once the dough is ready roll it out to about a half to a quarter centimeter thick.

I didn't have a perfectly round cookie cutter handy, so I used this one that was shaped like a Christmas ornament and just sliced off the nub to make round cookies.   You could use a cup if you're without a cutter but it doesn't work quite as well. 

Place the rounds on a parchment-lined baking pan.  Put about a tablespoon of pumpkin pie filling on each one, then top with another and push the edges down with a fork. Be sure to create deep indentations here as the cookies will puff up while baking and if you don't make them deep enough you will lose that super cute "pie" look.  Bake at 350C until bottoms are lightly browned and tops no longer feel soft or wet. 

While those are baking melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler until smooth and runny. 

Use a proper icing bag and tip if you have it and fill with white chocolate. If you're like me and don't have those things, put a ziploc over a tall glass as shown, with one corner pointed towards the bottom and fill it up with chocolate.  This makes for a much easier and cleaner fill up and gives you somewhere to rest the bag if you have to put it down for a couple seconds. 

Snip the corner off the bag and drizzle chocolate back and forth across the cookies.  Repeat the same melting and drizzling process for caramels. Beware that caramel will be MUCH stiffer and take longer to melt, however the process is the same. Just make sure there are no lumps left before transferring to the plastic bag and consider wearing an oven mitt as you drizzle, as I found the caramel to be much warmer than the chocolate. 

Pumpkin Pie Cookies

2 ½ cups flour (whole wheat pastry or all-purpose)

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ sticks cold unsalted butter, cubed

~½ cup ice water

1/2 can pumpkin pie filling

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup caramels

recipe adapted from: Building Buttercream