Every year, our group heads up to Rileys at Los Rios Rancho in Oak Glen for an early breakfast and some apple picking in the local orchards. We have to go early because even at the end of September, it still gets up to about 85*! Now that Jax is almost three years old, he can finally pick the apples all by himself. He enjoys that! We picked Spartan (sweet for snacking) and Rome (great for baking) apples and fun tossing them into the bags and crates. After we fill up our bags, we head over to the Little Seedlings Farm on Los Rios Rancho and the kids feed and pet the goats…always a highlight of the trip for Jax. He even tells the goats, “I love you goat.” Melts my heart!
On the ride home, I always try to find new recipes to use with our picked apples to maybe find a new favorite. This year I DEFINITELY found a new FAV! I found the Apple Pie Cookie recipe on Pinterest and of course used the apples we picked instead of the Granny Smith like the recipe calls for. I used four Spartan and one Rome…because that’s just what I pulled out of our bag. And let me tell you, even though the Spartans are really great for snacking on because they are sweet (which Jax did as I was assembling!), they make an absolutely DELICIOUS pie filling! And because they are on the smaller side of apple sizes, they are perfect for this recipe because you don’t need a lot of apples to make a lot of “cookies”. These cookies are crumbly though, so be sure your littles aren’t eating over the carpet! LOL!
These will definitely be my new go-to for Thanksgiving dessert!
Quick Tips –
1. You won’t really be able to tell if the cookies are actually cooked because the crumb topping doesn’t really “brown” and the apple filling doesn’t bubble up. I baked mine 5 minutes longer because I was unsure. They still turned out great, but I’m sure they were done at the end of the 19 minutes like the recipe called for.
2. Definitely leave the cookies in the muffin tins for at least 15 minutes after they come out of the oven. Any sooner and the crumb topping won’t set enough to hold together. They are still crumbly even after that, but not nearly as much. They are easier to hold like a “cookie” if you let them set up.
Recipe Source: Apple Pie Cookies
Make and Taste 