Learn how to make the best apple oatmeal cookies with this easy recipe. Find out whether you should use fresh or dried apples in cookies and how each of these will affect the texture of your cookies. These soft oatmeal cookies make a tasty, wholesome after-school snack.
There was a bacon oatmeal raisin cookie recipe published in the March 2012 issue of Bon Appétit. I was quite excited about it in March, and I was still excited when I finally made them this week (with whiskey-soaked dried apple pieces in place of the raisins).
Of course, what I didn't expect when I made them was that the recipe was going to need "some" tweaking and further distract me. Unfortunately, the recipe as written in the magazine didn't quite work out for me: instead of chewy cookies, I got hard, crispy cookie pucks. Fixing the texture of these cookies became a challenge and a little experiment.
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Ingredients
- butter—use unsalted butter. If using salted butter, reduce the salt in the recipe
- sugar—use light brown sugar for its mild taste and moisture content so that the cookies are soft
- eggs—use large eggs. Smaller eggs may lead to a dryer cookie
- vanilla—use pure vanilla extract. If using artificial, use less because it's quite potent
- flour—I used bleached all-purpose flour, but unbleached should work too
- oats—use rolled oats, also called old-fashioned oats or large flake oats. Do not use minute oats or quick oats which are too fine, or steel-cut oats, which are too crunchy, hard, and coarse
- leavening—use baking soda as the chemical leavener in this recipe, not baking powder. Please read about baking soda versus baking powder if you aren't sure what the difference is
- salt—use Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt. If using table salt, add half the amount because it's saltier
- spices—cinnamon is the perfect spice for oatmeal cookies with apple
- apple—you can use either diced fresh apple or diced dried apple. Whichever you choose will have an impact on the texture of the cookie. If you opt for fresh apples, use a variety that holds up to baking, like Honeycrisp, Royal Gala, Granny Smith, or Cortland. Do not use McIntosh apples that break down too much when heated
- nuts—I love to add chopped toasted walnuts to oatmeal cookies.
Please read the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.
Substitutions and Variations
- apple—if you use fresh apples, the apple pieces will bake and soften in the oven, but after 24 hours, the cookies may be damp from the fruit's moisture. On the other hand, if you use dried apples, the pieces will be chewier, and you will be able to store the soft oatmeal cookies for longer.
- nuts—I like to use chopped toasted walnuts or toasted pecans in oatmeal cookies. Feel free to use any nuts or seeds you prefer, in the same quantity. If you omit them, the cookies may spread a little more.
Notes From Recipe Testing
- Adding less butter to the cookie dough resulted in cookies that are crispy and spread less. Not good.
- Adding an extra egg made the cookies more soft and cakey. They spread more with more egg and had more bubbles from the leavening.
- Fresh apple: adding fresh apples to the cookie dough makes delicious apple cookies, but if you want to store them, the apple releases a lot of moisture within 24 hours of baking them. Surprisingly, 2 days after baking, when you would expect the cookies to dry out, the moisture had disappeared and the cookies had a nice soft texture.
- Dried apple: dried apple makes for a chewy texture in these cookies. I suspect some people may not love that. The next day, the texture of the dried apple had softened a little, while the cookies remained soft. There was no moisture issue.
- Soaking the dried apple pieces in hot whiskey is a great idea to soften the pieces and add flavour! If you do this, drain the apple pieces and pat them dry before mixing them into the cookie dough to avoid adding too much moisture.
Personally, I preferred the softer/chewier cookies with 1 egg and ½ cup of butter, as written below.
How to Make Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies
These soft oatmeal cookies are super easy to make, and there's no chilling required! Here's how to make them:
Step 1: Start by creaming the butter and the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (image 1), then mix in the egg and the vanilla (image 2). Whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bow (image 3) before adding them to the mixer with the toasted walnuts (image 4).
Step 2: Stir the cookie dough just until the flour disappears (image 5), then mix in the chopped apple (fresh or dried )(image 6). I recommend using a disher to portion out even scoops of the oatmeal cookie dough (image 7).
Step 3: Place scoops of dough on a parchment paper-lined half sheet pan, pressing the mounds down with your palm (image 8) to flatten them out (image 9). Bake until the edges are set and begin to colour slightly (image 10). For the softest cookies, do not overbake them!
Oatmeal Cookie Baking FAQs
If you make these oatmeal cookies with dried apples, they stay soft and delicious for at least three days in an airtight container. Use a soaked terracotta brown sugar saver to help keep them soft.
If you make these oatmeal cookies with fresh apple pieces, they are best eaten the day they are baked. By the next day, the apple pieces may release moisture into the cookie, making them slightly less appealing. Interestingly, I noted two days after baking that the moisture was less noticeable and the texture was quite lovely.
If you want to incorporate fresh apples into a cookie recipe, you need to choose the right apple variety that holds up to heat and baking without breaking down into sauce. Choose a variety like Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, Gala, or Cortland apples. Be aware, though, that some of these apples are quite juicy, so the cookies are best eaten the day they are baked. For longer storage, use dried apples instead. Do not make these cookies with McIntosh apples or apple sauce varieties.
Oatmeal cookies are made with oats as well as dried fruit or chocolate chips and even nuts. All these inclusions or add-ins prevent the cookies from spreading out as they bake. For this reason, you need to press down the cookies with the palm of your hand to flatten out the scoops of dough before baking to help them spread out more. Here's a photo of two oatmeal cookies baked from the same batch of dough at the same time, where one scoop of cookie dough was flattened before baking (on the left), while the other was left mounded before baking (on the right). You can see the difference in the thickness and roundness of the cookie after baking. Flattening the scoops before baking helped the cookie spread out to the perfect thickness.
Baking soda in oatmeal cookies helps the cookies brown and also may weaken the gluten network to create a softer cookie that spreads more. It also may contribute a little flavour. If you forget it, your cookies may not spread or brown as much and the taste may be a little more bland. Do not use baking powder instead!
Other Oatmeal Cookie Recipes to Try
Oatmeal cookies are a classic after-school snack for a reason! If you enjoy these, you will love the Canadian favourite date squares and these soft and chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. And for the chocolate lovers, check out these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies made with milk chocolate and peanuts!
You must use the category name, not a URL, in the category field.If you tried this recipe for apple oatmeal cookies (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!
📖 Recipe
Soft Apple Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 60 grams walnuts chopped
- 160 grams bleached all-purpose flour
- 100 grams rolled oats (or large flake oats) also called old fashioned oats
- 5 mL ground cinnamon
- 2.5 mL baking soda
- 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
- 115 grams unsalted butter softened
- 150 grams light brown sugar
- 1 large egg(s)
- 10 mL pure vanilla extract
- 160 grams Gala apple chopped or 80 grams (1 cup) chopped dried apple (see notes)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C) and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Place the walnuts on a sheet pan and toast them until golden brown (about 10–15 minutes). Set aside to cool completely.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the sugar for about a minute or until properly blended and smooth, then add the egg and vanilla, scraping down the bowl as needed with a spatula.
- Add the whisked dry ingredients and toasted walnuts to the mixer, on low, until the cookie dough starts to come together, then add in the chopped apple.
- Portion out the cookie dough and place 6 on each prepared baking sheet. Flatten the scoops down with your palm.
- Bake the cookies until set, 10 to 12 minutes, depending on how well baked you like them. I leave them until the edges turn slightly golden brown.
- Let the cookies sit on the sheet pan for a minute to firm up before transferring the cookies to a wire rack to cool.
Notes
- For the apple, if you use diced fresh apples, use Gala apples, Honeycrisp, or even Granny Smith apples, which can withstand baking. With fresh apples, these soft oatmeal cookies are best eaten the day they are baked. The next day, the apple may release some moisture that can cause the cookies to become soggy. This will resolve itself by the next day (so 2 days after baking). If you use dried apple pieces, you won't have this issue.
- If you don't love walnuts, try adding pecans or almonds. For a nut-free oatmeal cookie, use sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds instead of nuts. If you skip the nuts entirely without replacing them, the cookies may spread more.
- Store these cookies in an airtight container. If you used dried apple, consider adding a soaked terracotta brown sugar saver to the container to keep the cookies soft.
- Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 325 °F (165 °C) in order to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.
Nutrition
If you are a fan of oatmeal cookies, you should also try these thick chewy oatmeal cookies with milk chocolate and peanuts or for another fruity cookie, try these blueberry oatmeal cookies with white chocolate.
Melissa@EyesBigger says
i want these. mmmhmmm!
Medeja says
As long as you are doing what you really love it's great! It will take some time to catch up but then you will get used 🙂
How great that you have given that information how to modify recipe accoring to your preference! I love it !