‘Tis the season for all the sweet treats and cookies! So.many.cookies. Of course, I had to jump on the cookie polar express (love that movie!) and take a favorite classic and modify it just a tad to make it fit into that healthy cookie category. Say hello to a very special cookie, a first for me–Gingerbread Apple Cookies using a real apple in the cookie dough!
These gingerbread cut-out cookies are so easy to make, they include all the fragrant gingerbread spices that we love and sneak in a Stemilt Cosmic Crisp® apple that’s now in season.
How to Make Gingerbread Apple Cookies
You’ll start by peeling and dicing the apple and combining the diced apple with cinnamon, allspice, ground cloves, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla, and water in a saucepan, and heating until the apple is very soft. Then you’ll beat butter and coconut sugar together in a stand mixer (or you can use a hand beater), add two flax eggs and the apple mixture to the bowl, and beat that in, and then add the molasses.
In a separate bowl, you’ll whisk together the baking powder, salt, and gluten-free baking flour (yes, these cookies are also gluten-free!) and then fold the flour mixture into the wet mixture to form the dough. Don’t over mix or the cookies will come out tough.
Most gingerbread cookies call for an egg, but with the use of an apple and the flax eggs, we can skip the egg, making these cookies vegan-friendly too. Using Cosmic Crisp® apples adds the perfect flavor- they are a cross between Honeycrisp and Enterprise apple varieties. You can read all about this exciting apple breed in this blog post!
These Gingerbread Apple Cookies are on the softer side, but if you’d like crunchier gingerbread cookies you can bake for longer until the edges start to brown. Either way, they are so delicious decorated with your favorite cookie icing. I used powdered sugar mixed with water and 4 teaspoons of tapioca syrup. The icing is pretty easy to work with but feel free to skip the tedious decorating and slather it right on unless it’s a fun holiday activity you’d like to do with family and friends. My kids had a blast helping me decorate these cookies, and even more fun eating them 😉
I hope you and your loved ones enjoy these Gingerbread Apple Cookies! Don’t forget to tag me on Instagram and come back to this post to rate the recipe if you make them!