Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies

The other night I was craving Apple Crisp, one of my favorite desserts, but I didn't have any apples(a main ingredient, incase you didn't know). Since I couldn't feed my craving, I decided to search the internet for new dessert recipes. I found a few yummy ones that I can hopefully share with you in the future, but honestly, I couldn't stop thinking about hot and delicious Apple Crisp! Something about the smell of warm apples and cinnamon wafting through the air reminds me of my childhood. It's comforting. That thought lead me on to how else you could incorporate apples in baking. First thing that came to mind...COOKIES! I never thought to put fresh apples in cookies, but why not right? Turns out, it was a great idea.





Ingredients
1 granny smith apple, peeled and diced small

1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cup rolled oats, old-fashioned 

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon of all spice

1/4 cup melted chocolate chips(optional)

Directions


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Peel and dice the apple and toss with lemon juice and place in a small bowl and set aside.

 In a large bowl, cream the butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, vanilla extract and mix until fully combined.

In another medium bowl, mix together the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice. Add it to the creamed butter mixture and mix until fully combined. Then stir in the apple pieces.

 Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the cookie dough on the prepared cookie sheets. Place about 12 cookies per sheet.

 Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from oven and let them cool for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

 As they were cooling I had a brilliant idea to drizzle chocolate over the them, best idea ever! - totally optional however. The easy way I did it was to place a 1/4 cup of chocolate chips in a ziplock bag, microwave it for a minute at time on high until the chips were fully melted. Then I snipped off a very tiny corner of the bag and used it to drizzle the chocolate on the cookies.