I was at the store, yesterday, to get apples for last night’s dinner and noticed a green apple I had never seen before – A Green Dragon Apple. It looked like a Granny Smith with freckles. I picked up two – along with a couple of Honeycrisps for dinner.
Today, I was in the mood for an apple-oatmeal cookie – and I had an apple. My first thought was to just adapt my usual oatmeal cookie, but I then remembered a recipe I saw a while back that used a reduced applesauce in the batter – I had some homemade applesauce my sister had made that was really good, so off I went to find the recipe. Of course I found it – from Sally’s Baking Addiction.
And, of course, I made a few changes to the recipe…
The first step was reducing the applesauce. Sally does it on a stovetop for about 10 minutes. I did it in a small pyrex bowl in the microwave. I have a habit of scorching things like that on the stovetop – a couple of 3-minute bursts with a good stir in between reduced in by half perfectly.
And I used my new Fall Spice Blend in place of the warm fall spices in the recipe.
Oatmeal Apple Cookies
adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction
- 2/3 cup (160 g) unsweetened applesauce
- 2 cups (170 g) old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 1/4 cups (156 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp Fall Spice Blend
- 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light (110 g) or dark brown (115 g) sugar
- 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (90 g) finely diced apples
- 1/2 cup (63 g) chopped walnuts
**Note that 1/2 cup of granulated, light brown, and dark brown sugars all weigh different if you weigh your ingredients.)
Reduce the applesauce: Place the applesauce in a pyrex-type bowl and microwave in two 3-minute bursts – stirring well between.
Make the cookies: Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line large baking sheets with parchment.
Combine the oats, flour, baking soda, salt, and spice blend. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugars until creamed together, about 5 minutes. Scrape down bowl as needed. Add the reduced applesauce, egg yolk, and vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
Add in the dry ingredients and beat on low speed until combined. Finally, beat in the chopped apples and walnuts. The cookie dough will be thick and sticky.
Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop mounds of cookie dough (about 1.5 Tbsp/35g of dough each) and arrange 12 per baking sheet.
Bake for 14–16 minutes or until lightly browned and set around the edges. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.
They came out great! Perfectly chewy, lots of good oatmeal texture, sweet but not overly so…
The original recipe calls for a maple glaze. The cookie definitely did not need it! Probably because of the sweetness of the apple.
A bit more about that apple…
Wanting to make a small dice, I started by making 1/4″ slices on my mandoline. I generally do not peel things if I don’t totally have to, so the first slice – almost all peel – was mine. First thing I noticed was it was a really tough skin. But the apple flesh was very nicely sweet – not at all tart like a granny smith.
After getting the cookies in the oven, I went to find out about this apple I had just bought. They’re a Japanese heirloom grown in the Hood River Valley – about 70 miles east of where we live. They’re very sweet with a “bruise-resistant” skin – as in yes, it’s tough. Not necessarily in a bad way, though – just a bit unexpected.
I think these would be really good in a savory dish… time to get the old grey cells engaged…