Irresistible Apple Peanut Butter Cookies: Soft, Chewy, and Perfectly Spiced
Indulge in the perfect harmony of flavors and textures with these incredible Apple Peanut Butter Cookies. Imagine a soft, chewy cookie base rich with the comforting taste of peanut butter, elevated by pockets of freshly grated, tender apple. This isn’t just another peanut butter cookie recipe; it’s a delightful twist that adds a unique moistness, a hint of tartness, and a warm, spiced aroma that will make these a new favorite in your cookie repertoire. Whether you’re a devoted peanut butter fan or simply looking for a novel baking experience, these cookies offer a surprisingly delicious combination that’s truly better with apples in it!
My passion for cookies, especially those featuring peanut butter, runs deep. Classics like our Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies or the hearty Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies are always on heavy rotation. However, one day, while enjoying the simple pleasure of dipping crisp apple slices into creamy peanut butter, inspiration struck. Why not combine these beloved flavors into a single, irresistible cookie? The result exceeded all expectations, proving to be every bit as delicious and comforting as I had imagined.
What Makes Apple Peanut Butter Cookies So Special?
These Apple Peanut Butter cookies are precisely what their name suggests: classic peanut butter cookies infused with a generous amount of finely grated apple. But the magic lies in how these two core ingredients interact. The apple not only introduces a delightful fruitiness and a subtle tang that beautifully cuts through the richness of the peanut butter, but it also adds a unique moisture and tenderness to the cookie. A touch of cinnamon binds these flavors together, creating a warm, inviting profile that feels both familiar and excitingly new. The apples bake down slightly, softening into tender pockets that enhance the overall chewy texture, making each bite an experience in balanced sweetness and spiced comfort.
Mastering the Art of Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies (with Apples!)
Baking homemade peanut butter cookies, especially with the addition of fresh apples, is a rewarding experience. Achieving that perfect soft and chewy texture requires attention to a few key details. Here are some essential tips to help you bake flawlessly delicious cookies every time:
- Ensure Proper Flour Consistency: The right amount of flour is crucial for cookie structure. If your dough feels overly sticky after mixing all ingredients, you might need to add a tablespoon or two more flour, being careful not to overmix. Too little flour can lead to flat, overly spread cookies, while too much can result in dry, crumbly ones.
- Cream Shortening and Sugars Thoroughly: This step is foundational for light and airy cookies. Devote 2-3 minutes to creaming the shortening (or butter) and sugars together until the mixture becomes visibly light, fluffy, and pale in color. This process incorporates air into the mixture, which contributes to the cookies’ final texture and rise.
- Preheat Your Oven Accurately: Always preheat your oven fully before placing cookies inside. A consistently hot oven ensures that cookies begin baking immediately and evenly, preventing them from spreading too much before they set. An oven thermometer can help verify your oven’s true temperature.
- Utilize a Cookie Scoop for Uniformity: For professional-looking cookies that bake evenly, a cookie scoop is an indispensable tool. It guarantees that each cookie is the same size, leading to consistent baking times and perfect presentation.
- Achieve Softened Butter (or Shortening) – Don’t Melt It! The temperature of your fat is paramount. Butter or shortening that is too cold will not cream properly, resulting in a dense cookie. Conversely, melted fat will cause cookies to spread excessively and become greasy. Ideally, leave butter on the counter for 1-2 hours to soften naturally. If time is short, gently soften it in the microwave using 5-second intervals, constantly checking to ensure it doesn’t melt. The defrost setting on a microwave can be particularly effective for even softening.
- Employ Parchment Paper or Silicone Mats: Line your baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. This not only prevents sticking, making cookie removal a breeze, but also promotes more even heat distribution for consistent baking.
- Avoid Overbaking for Ultimate Softness: This is arguably the most crucial tip for chewy cookies. Remove cookies from the oven when their edges are just beginning to turn a light golden brown, even if their centers appear slightly underbaked. Cookies continue to bake on the hot baking sheet for a few minutes after removal, ensuring they finish cooking perfectly without becoming dry or hard.
- Consider Chilling the Dough (Optional but Recommended): For even richer flavor and reduced spreading, consider chilling your cookie dough for at least 30 minutes, or even overnight. This allows the ingredients to meld and the fats to firm up, resulting in a chewier cookie with a more developed taste.
Essential Ingredients for Your Apple Peanut Butter Cookies
Each ingredient plays a vital role in crafting these delightful cookies. Here’s a closer look at what you’ll need and why:
- Shortening: You’ll need 1 cup of shortening. Shortening is fantastic for producing cookies that are exceptionally soft, chewy, and hold their shape well, resulting in a thicker cookie. While you can substitute butter, expect a slightly flatter, denser cookie due to butter’s lower melting point and water content. Butter-flavored shortening can add a pleasant richness.
- Peanut Butter: 1 cup of creamy or crunchy peanut butter is required. For optimal baking results, we strongly recommend using traditional, shelf-stable peanut butter brands like Jif or Skippy. These brands contain stabilizers that prevent oil separation, which is crucial for consistent cookie dough texture. Natural peanut butters, with their often runnier consistency and tendency to separate, can alter the dough’s hydration and lead to cookies that spread too much or have a different texture.
- Sugars: This recipe calls for 1 cup of granulated sugar and 1 cup of brown sugar. The combination is key: granulated sugar contributes to crisp edges and overall sweetness, while brown sugar adds moisture, chewiness, and a subtle caramel note. Always ensure your brown sugar is fresh and soft for the best texture.
- Eggs: Two large eggs are essential binders, helping to emulsify the fats and liquids, structure the dough, and add richness and a touch of leavening.
- Vanilla Extract: One teaspoon of vanilla extract enhances and deepens all the other flavors. High-quality vanilla makes a noticeable difference in baked goods.
- Flour: Three cups of all-purpose flour provide the primary structure for the cookies. Cake flour can also be used for an even more tender crumb, but all-purpose works perfectly. Ensure you measure your flour correctly by spooning it into the measuring cup and leveling it off.
- Baking Soda: This is our primary leavening agent (1 teaspoon), responsible for the cookies’ rise and tender texture. It reacts with the acidic components in the brown sugar and apples to create a light crumb. Always check that your baking soda isn’t old or expired for maximum effectiveness.
- Salt: A single teaspoon of salt is vital for balancing the sweetness and enhancing the complex flavors of the peanut butter and apples. Don’t skip it!
- Cinnamon: One teaspoon of cinnamon adds a wonderful warmth and spice that perfectly complements the apple and peanut butter, tying all the flavors together into a cohesive, delicious profile.
- Apple: You’ll need about 1 cup of peeled, finely grated apple. This typically equates to one large apple, but feel free to add a little more if you love the apple flavor. Crisp, tart varieties like Honeycrisp, Fuji, Granny Smith, or Gala work best as they hold their texture and contribute a pleasant tang without becoming mushy.
How to Make Apple Peanut Butter Cookies: A Step-by-Step Guide
Follow these simple steps to create a batch of our delightfully soft and chewy Apple Peanut Butter Cookies:
- Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Prepare your baking sheets by greasing them lightly or lining them with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. This ensures easy removal and even baking.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the shortening, peanut butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Using an electric mixer, cream these ingredients together for at least 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture is visibly light, fluffy, and pale. This crucial step incorporates air, leading to a tender cookie.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Then, beat in the vanilla extract. Continue mixing for another 1-2 minutes until the mixture is fully incorporated and smooth.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. This ensures the leavening agents and spices are evenly distributed.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring on low speed or by hand just until everything is well combined and no dry streaks of flour remain. Be careful not to overmix, as this can develop gluten too much, leading to tough cookies.
- Gently fold in the grated apple until it is evenly distributed throughout the dough. The goal is to mix it in without crushing the apple pieces too much.
- Using a cookie scoop (approximately 1.5-2 tablespoons), drop rounded tablespoonfuls of dough onto your prepared cookie sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie for spreading.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are lightly golden brown and the centers still look slightly soft. Remember, the cookies will continue to cook slightly on the hot baking sheet.
- Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for about 5 minutes before carefully transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. This helps them set and prevents them from breaking.
Apple Peanut Butter Cookies
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Ingredients
- 1 cup shortening
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup grated peeled apple
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
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In a large bowl, cream together shortening, peanut butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar together for at least 2-3 minutes or until light and fluffy.
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Beat in the eggs and vanilla and mix for another 1-2 minutes until fully combined.
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In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir just until well combined, being careful not to overmix. Gently fold in the grated apple.
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Use a cookie scoop to drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets or cookie sheets that have been lined with parchment paper or silicone baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges begin to barely turn a light golden brown. Cool for about 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
Nutrition
Choosing the Right Apples for Baking Your Cookies
The success of these apple peanut butter cookies largely depends on the type of apple you choose. Not all apples are created equal when it comes to baking! The best varieties for cookies are those that are both crisp and tart. These qualities ensure the apples hold their shape and provide a pleasant textual contrast, rather than turning into mush during baking. The tartness also helps to balance the sweetness of the sugars and peanut butter, creating a more complex and enjoyable flavor profile. My top recommendation is Honeycrisp apples, known for their perfect balance of sweetness and tartness, along with a satisfying crunch. Fuji apples also perform exceptionally well. Other great choices include Granny Smith (for extra tartness), Braeburn, and Gala. Make sure to peel your apples before grating to ensure a smooth, enjoyable texture in the finished cookies.
The Best Peanut Butter for Your Cookie Creations
When it comes to baking with peanut butter, the type you use can significantly impact the outcome of your cookies. Through extensive testing, I’ve found that conventional, stabilized peanut butter brands like Skippy, Jif, or Peter Pan consistently yield the best results. These peanut butters have added stabilizers that prevent oil separation, which means their consistency is uniform and predictable. This consistent texture is vital for cookie dough, ensuring it comes together correctly and bakes evenly. Natural peanut butters, while delicious for spreading, tend to be much runnier due to oil separation and lack of emulsifiers. Using them in baking can lead to a greasier dough that spreads too much, resulting in flat, brittle cookies that don’t have the desired chewy texture. Stick to traditional creamy or crunchy peanut butter for reliable, perfectly textured cookies every time.
The Signature Fork Marks: To Crosshatch or Not to Crosshatch?
You might have noticed that many classic peanut butter cookie recipes instruct you to press a fork onto the tops of the dough balls, creating a distinctive crosshatch pattern. This isn’t just for aesthetics! Peanut butter cookie dough tends to be denser and richer than other cookie doughs, which can make it challenging for them to spread and bake evenly on their own. The fork marks serve a practical purpose: they flatten the dough slightly and create grooves that allow heat to penetrate more thoroughly, promoting even baking throughout the cookie. In the case of these Apple Peanut Butter Cookies, the fresh grated apples add a considerable amount of moisture to the dough. This extra moisture often helps the cookies spread a bit more naturally, making the fork marks less strictly necessary for even baking. However, if you love the traditional look and slight extra crispness that the fork marks provide, you are absolutely welcome to add them!
Here Are a Few More Peanut Butter Cookie Recipes You’ll Enjoy:
- Best Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies
- Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies
- Easy Peanut Butter Cookies
- Fudge Peanut Butter Cookie Cups
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Cookies
- Best Monster Cookies
- Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies
- Reese’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
- Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cookies
- Snickers Peanut Butter Cookies
These Apple Peanut Butter Cookies truly offer a delightful twist on a beloved classic. Their soft, chewy texture combined with the warm spice of cinnamon and the refreshing pockets of grated apple make them an unforgettable treat. Whether you’re baking for a special occasion, a cozy evening at home, or simply to satisfy a craving, this recipe promises delicious results. We encourage you to try them out and discover your new favorite cookie!
