Caramel Apple Cookies
Caramel Apple Cookies are a delicious frosted cookie chock full of fresh apples topped with the yummiest Caramel Frosting you’ve ever tasted. Looks like a cookie but tastes like a Caramel Apple!
Every fall when we were kids, our Grandparents would take us on a day trip to pick apples from actual Apple trees! Which was super fun and exciting for Southern California beach kids like us. And then at the end of the day, as a special treat, they would buy us Caramel Apples to eat on the long car ride home. (Only the very best kind of Grandparents would let two kids eat a sticky, yummy, messy Caramel Apple in the car!) So for us, Caramel Apples mean Fall and good memories and love. But we are grown-ups now and the truth is, they are also super messy. So we’ve taken the flavors of a Caramel Apple and transformed them into a delicious and easy-to-eat Caramel Apple Cookie! We were going to say that this is a great Fall cookie and it is, but you know what? It is actually a great cookie for any time of year. Your friends and family are going to love this light and fluffy cookie, chock full of apples and cinnamon and topped with delicious Caramel Frosting, we promise. We hope you love them as much as we do!
How to Make the Apple Cookies
Step 1: Peel and dice a tart apple – we used Granny Smith Apples. You will need a heaping cup of finely diced apples for these yummy Apple Cookies.
Step 2: In a large bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until the batter is light and fluffy (about 3 minutes.) Beat in the eggs and the vanilla extract for another 3 minutes. Mix in the cinnamon, the baking powder, the baking soda, and the salt. Mix well. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and mix until combined. Add in your heaping cup of apples and mix with a spoon.
Step 3: Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of flour and combine until the flour is completely incorporated into the cookie dough.
Step 4: Bake the cookies in a 375-degree oven for 13-15 minutes or until they are golden brown around the edges.
Step 5: This is what the cookies look like just out of the oven. Golden brown and delicious and chock full of yummy apple pieces. Allow the cookies to cool completely before frosting.
How to Make the Caramel Frosting
Step 6: While the cookies are cooling, make up a batch of our super delicious The Best Caramel Buttercream Frosting. You can find the recipe and detailed instructions on how to make this yummy Caramel frosting right here.
Frosting and Decorating the Cookies
Step 7: Melt 8-10 Kraft Caramel candies in a small pan on low heat. You will use this caramel sauce to drizzle over the frosted Caramel Apple Cookies.
Step 8: Frost the Apple Cookies with the Caramel Frosting.
Step 9: Drizzle the melted caramel over the Caramel Frosting as a final touch to these yummy Apple Cookies.
Expert Tips and FAQ’s
Both the eggs and the butter should be at room temperature which will help your cookies turn out lighter and fluffier. For the eggs, room temperature simply means not cold out of the refrigerator. If you forget to take the eggs out before you start making cookie dough you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up. The butter also needs to be softened to room temperature which means if you touch it you should leave an indentation on the stick of butter. Do not use butter that has been over-softened or melted. If that happens you should use a different stick of butter or put it back into the refrigerator to let it set up. We have a whole post about How to Soften Butter, click here if you need more information on how to do that.
Creaming the butter, sugar and then mixing the eggs in is the most important part of the cookie dough mixing process. Creaming is when you fully incorporate the butter and sugar together and add some much needed air to the dough. We recommend creaming the butter and sugar for 2 minutes on medium-high speed and then mixing the butter/sugar/eggs for another 3 minutes at the same speed. Once you add the flour, you want to mix the dough as little as possible. Mix it too much and you will get tough cookies. Mix in the flour on low speed and continue mixing ONLY until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Make sure you scrape down the sides and the bottom to make sure all the flour has gotten mixed in.
We always line our cookie sheets with a piece of parchment paper, it keeps the cookie from sticking to the sheet and from over-browning. You can find parchment paper either in rolls or in pre-cut sheets in most grocery stores, and we highly recommend it. Ideally, you should use at least 2 cookie sheets when baking cookies. You don’t want to add the raw cookie dough to a cookie sheet that is hot out of the oven. The dough will start baking even before you get it in the oven.
Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container. They should be completely cooled before storing them. Because these are frosted cookies, we usually add a layer of parchment paper between each row of cookies in our plastic container. Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.
Other Apple Dessert Recipes You Will Love
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Caramel Apple Cookies
Caramel Apple Cookies are a delicious cookie chock full of fresh apples topped with the yummiest Caramel Frosting you've ever tasted. Looks like a cookie but tastes like a Caramel Apple!
Ingredients
- 1 cup Butter (Sweet Cream Salted, softened)
- 1 cup Granulated Sugar
- 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoons Cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 heaping cup finely diced and peeled Tart Apples (we use Granny Smith Apples)
- 1 batch of our The Best Caramel Buttercream Frosting
- 8-10 Kraft Caramel candies
Instructions
- Peal and dice 1 heaping cup of tart apples.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
- Beat in eggs and vanilla.
- Mix in cinnamon, baking powder, baking sold and salt and mix well.
- Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and mix until combined.
- Add in 1 cup of apples and mix with a spoon.
- Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of Flour and combine until the flour is completely incorporated into the cookie dough.
- Bake the cookies in a 375 degree oven for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.
- Allow cookies to cool.
- Make a batch of our The Best Caramel Buttercream Frosting.
- Frost Apple Cookies with the Caramel Frosting.
- Melt 8-10 Kraft Caramel Frosting in a pan on low heat.
- Drizzle the melted caramel over the frosting.
Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!
