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Family-friendly meals made easy!
Make everyday family moments count, with easy recipes that everyone will love. Join our email community to receive tested recipes and tips.
Make everyday family moments count, with easy recipes that everyone will love. Join our email community to receive tested recipes and tips.
These Pumpkin Spice Caramel Thumbprint Bear Cookies are an easy, playful fall treat made with Pillsbury™ Sugar Cookie Dough. Pumpkin pie spice and ginger bring warm, cozy flavor, perfectly paired with tender sugar cookies and gooey caramel centers. Shaped like adorable bear faces, these caramel thumbprint cookies are as fun to make as they are to share. Get the whole family involved in decorating these festive fall cookies which are perfect for after-school treats, bake sales, and fall baking.
Ready to make these cute bear-themed caramel thumbprint cookies? Here’s everything you’ll need.
Refrigerated Pillsbury™ Sugar Cookie Dough: Our sugar cookie dough is the perfect canvas to spice up for these pumpkin spice cookies.
All-Purpose Flour: Mixing a bit of flour into the dough helps the bears’ ears and heads keep their shape in the oven.
Pumpkin Pie Spice: A fall pantry staple spice blend that brings warm, cozy flavor.
Ground Ginger: A little extra ground ginger amps up the fall flavor.
Sugar: Rolling the dough in sugar before baking creates a light exterior crunch and helps the cookies spread evenly in the oven.
Caramel Sauce: Gooey caramel pairs splendidly with the sweet, spiced cookie. Look for caramel sauce as opposed to syrup—sauce is generally thicker and will stay contained in the thumbprint.
Chocolate Chips: Use these to mark the bear eyes and snout—we like semisweet, but use any chips you prefer.
Here’s how to make these yummy fall-spiced caramel thumbprint cookies. Follow the recipe for more detail!
Mix the flour and spices into the dough.
Portion the dough into 28 small balls and 14 larger balls.
Roll the balls in sugar and arrange them on the baking sheets, so they resemble bear faces—2 ears and 1 head for each bear. Bake them up!
While still warm, use a small measuring spoon or your thumb to make a well in the middle of each bear's head. Fill the wells with caramel, and add chocolate chips for eyes and a snout. Enjoy!
If you have leftover bear cookies, here’s how to store them.
Keep Pumpkin Spice Caramel Thumbprint Bear Cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.
You can store the cookies in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
For even longer storage, keep cookies in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 months. Thaw at room temperature before eating.
In a medium bowl, break up cookie dough and let sit for 10 minutes to soften. Add flour, pumpkin pie spice, and ground ginger; stir or knead until well mixed. (DO NOT EAT RAW COOKIE DOUGH AFTER COMBINING WITH FLOUR.) Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
First, shape 28 small balls of dough, about 1/2 teaspoon each. These will be the ears of the bears. Shape the remaining dough into 14 larger balls, about 1 1/2 tablespoons each. These will be the heads of the bears.
Place sugar into a shallow bowl. Roll one large cookie dough ball in the granulated sugar until well coated, and place it on a prepared baking sheet. Roll two small dough balls in sugar, and place them at the top of the larger ball for the bear’s ears. Make sure the 3 balls of dough are touching, or they will not fuse together while baking. Repeat with remaining dough balls, arranging the bears about 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Refrigerate the arranged dough for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, adjust oven racks so two shelves are positioned near the center of the oven, leaving enough space between them for air to circulate evenly around both baking sheets. Heat oven to 350°F (or 325°F for nonstick baking sheets). Once dough is chilled, bake cookies 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are set.
Remove cookies from the oven and immediately use the back of a rounded 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon to carefully indent the middle of each cookie, making sure not to go all the way through.
Allow cookies to cool 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Fill each indent with about 1/2 teaspoon caramel sauce and arrange 3 chocolate chips for the eyes and nose of each bear.
Many store-bought caramel sauces come with a squeeze-top lid, ready to drizzle over ice cream or other treats. Grab one of these if you can; it makes it super easy to fill in the thumbprint with caramel sauce.
We call for chocolate chips to create the eyes and snout for the bear's face, but you can get creative! Try raisins, white chocolate baking chips, or peanuts.
If you don’t keep pumpkin pie spice in your pantry, you can use 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, and a pinch of ground cloves or allspice in place of the pumpkin pie spice called for in this recipe.
This recipe was developed and tested with both baking sheets in the oven at the same time, and in most ovens, they should bake evenly without needing to rotate the pans. However, if your oven tends to bake unevenly or has noticeable hot spots, you can rotate the baking sheets halfway through baking by switching the top and bottom pans and turning each sheet 180 degrees to promote more even browning and baking.
