When I think of baking with apples, my mind immediately rushes to warm, gooey tarts, muffins and pies rich with the sweet scent of the crisp, fall season fruit. But, since I have such an abundance of it and have already done plenty of predictable apple desserts, I wanted to try something new… and this time, with cookies!
Snickerdoodles are one of my favorite cookies, and some of the simplest to make, only requiring butter, flour, sugar, eggs, cinnamon and the most basic ingredients to create a fantastically soft, rich sensation of fluffy flavor in every bite. With a bit of shredded apple, though, this experiment made for a really scrumptious spin on a classic cookie that’s wonderful just as is.
Soft, sweet, and undeniably delicious dunked into a cup of hot tea, these apple cinnamon snickerdoodles should definitely make an appearance in your fall baking this season! I know they’ll be popping out of my oven plenty this year, and if friends and family are lucky, into a box and onto their doorsteps!
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Soft Apple Cinnamon Snickerdoodles
Ingredients:
Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2/3 cup white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. table salt
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 fresh, small apple, shredded
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
3 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
With a mixer, cream butter on medium-high speed until soft and smooth.
Add both sugars to the creamed butter and mix until fully incorporated. With the mixer on medium-high speed, add the egg to the mixture and beat until the batter looks uniform.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Gently fold into the batter until just combined. Fold in shredded apples.
Prepare a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Form balls of dough and roll them around in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place the dough balls on the sheet, about 3 inches apart. Use your fingers to press and flatten the dough slightly.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies are light golden brown. They should be soft and chewy. Remove cookies from sheet and cool on a wire rack.
Enjoy!
These look fantastic! I love snickerdoodles, and apple goes so well with cinnamon that I bet these are amazing! :)
Apple and cinnamon is such a classic combination and these look delicious!
Mmm these sound delicious!
These sound great! I live snikerdoodles and the addition of apple is genius!
Snickerdoodles are one of my favorite cookies too! I love finding new ways to make tweak them… I bet using apple almost makes them taste like an apple pie cookie!! YUM!
Oh wow, apple in there is wonderful! Great flavor and I am sure they are super soft and chewy!
Good varaiation and I wish my doorstep was close to yours.
Just as I’m complaining about prepping apples to bake with, you share these gems. Now I really do have to buy myself a peeler/corer/slicer. These sound amazing!
I’m not big into snickerdoodles but these would make me change my mind about them!
oneordinaryday – No need for a peeler/corer/slicer gadget. Just peel and shred!
What a terrific idea! This will be a hit with our family.
Georgia, these look absolutely delicious! A perfect treat for fall baking. :)
I could so eat a few for breakfast right now!!
i would never think to add apples to snickerdoodles, but they look awesome!
Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookie. I was just looking at another blog with pumpkin snickerdoodles, but I have to admit that these sound a bit better. Great post, Georgia!
These will definitely be popping out of my oven this season. I just imagined eating one…is that normal?
This reminds me, once again, why I am enamored with the fall.
Apple plus cinnamon = perfection :)
I love the added apples to these cookies… yum!
Lovely flavor addition to snickerdoodles-very creative! Buzz buzz!
This looks outstanding, and your pictures are so beautiful. Love love love anything pumpkin. Fall is the best!
Laura @ A Healthy Jalapeño
I love the idea of using shredded apple – I’ve used applesauce before but not the actual apple. Sounds great.
It has been a long time since I had snickerdoodles, maybe too long. And I have never had them with apple added. Sounds excellent.
Yum! I would love a few of these right now with my coffee!
These look tasty! Apples and cinnamon are my favorite year round.
I love snickerdoodles!!! I recently had a snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich with cinnamon ice cream.. it was the best thing ever!
These look fantastic! I love snickerdoodles plus not a lot can top apples and cinnamon!
Oh Georgia, these look great! I just made some pumpkin snickerdoodles that were pretty good too!
Mmmm…I love snickerdoodles. Your apple version sounds perfect for fall! :)
Hello Georgia, I attempted twice to send your recipe via Email, but the link does not appear to work correctly. Please advise. Thank you.
I made these this weekend and they were very good. I have 2 questions though. First, your cookies appear to be somewhat puffy, almost domed in the middle – mine were completely flat, no height at all. They were very soft, almost falling apart. Does this sound right to you? Also, most snickerdoodle recipes tell you to chill the dough before baking. Your recipe didn’t specify that, so I didn’t do it. I’m wondering if that may have had something to do with them being so flat. Any thoughts?
Hi Erik – I’m glad you enjoyed these cookies! I don’t have an exact answer for you as to why yours were not domed and puffy, but my best guess is that you may have used melted butter, whereas mine was softened. I also used a large cookie scoop whereas you may have portioned them smaller.
I made these the other day and they were SO good! Everyone that tried them, LOVED them.
I posted about it on my baking blog here – http://kayssweetobsessions.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/apple-cinnamon-snickerdoodles/
Hi Kristyn – Thanks so much for stopping by to tell me you made these cookies! They look perfectly soft and golden brown. I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed them. :)
these sound great, I am making cookie doughs for my christmas baking and wonder how the shredded apple will stand up to freezing?(I make all my doughs ahead of time, form them into balls and freeze them)
I’m not exactly sure that the shredded apples alone would freeze well, but combined into the dough they should be fine.
Ohmigosh! New favorite cookie! They are delicious beyond words!
I tried these the other day, they didn’t turn out as pretty as yours; they were more of the color dark brown. But they were super delicious!
I was kind of wondering how you rolled them into balls. My batter was sticky so I had to sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar instead– With lots of ’em by the way, just to make up for the slightly bland taste of my cookies. I don’t think the recipe was the problem, it’s probably just the apples I used. (Plus, I really like sweets)
Anyway, do you have any idea as to why my batter wasn’t as manageable? Or were they supposed to be that way?
Thanks for the recipe by the way! Everyone loved them!!
Glad to hear you enjoyed these cookies, but sorry to hear you had a difficult dough! Were you perhaps using melted butter instead of softened? The dark brown color also could have come from using dark brown sugar, as opposed to light brown, or overripe apples.
The cookies look yummy. But I am in love with your cup and saucer! What pattern is that, and where did you get it from?
The saucer is from Hobby Lobby (a crafts store) and the cup was a vintage store find!
I made these yesterday with a few changes. I used 1 cup white whole wheat and subbed flax seed for the eggs and used only one Tbls of cornstarch. The teen daughter who adores snicker doodle cookies says this is the best snicker doodle cookie. It stayed very moist yet firm, most likely from the shredded apples. And most importantly a husband who does not like anything healthy (a little exaggeration) likes the cookie. I will be making these again.
Could you tell me please, what type of apples did you use in this recipe (Granny Smith, Delicious, Gala, Honey Crisp, etc.)?
Georgia — September 23rd, 2015 @ 12:07 pm
I believe I used Gala apples for this recipe.
The recipe calls for 1tbsp of butter (or 1 stick?)…surely that’s a typo? What’s the measurement of butter required?