Baking Cookies with Friends

 I finally had some time off to myself tonight to relax for a little while, and I chose to try to bake some cookies. I usually really like baking homemade stuff, but these past couple months I have been incredibly busy and haven’t had the time or energy to do it. 

However, today I finally had a chance where me and all of my friends' schedules had opened up for the same night to hang out. I was so excited, we haven’t all gotten to hang out together since last semester. After talking about life and catching up, we all wanted something to do. We went looking for some recipes, scouring TikTok, and figuring out what we all want, we ended up on snickerdoodle apple pie cookies! They turned out to be a little harder than I originally thought. I’ll post some pictures below and then underneath those pictures will be how I did it and the ingredients used if anyone is interested! I unfortunately completely forgot to take step by step pictures but I will add in a link to the TikTok video I found it from.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8J5SCRY/

Ingredients:

Apple pie filling:

2 to 3 honey crisp apples (chopped in small pieces)

⅓ cup granulated sugar

1 ½ tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp apple pie spice

¼ tsp salt

1 ¼ cups water

Icing(optional):

1  ¼ cup powdered sugar

¼ cup milk, or until slightly runny consistency

Caramel drizzle: Smuckers caramel topping, heated until slightly runny

Snickerdoodles:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened (cut in slices to soften faster)

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 ¾ cups all purpose flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

4 tbsp granulated sugar (for coating)

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of apple spice seasoning (optional)

First you'll preheat the oven 375 degrees F (personally, I would do 350 as I think these cooked too fast when I used 375), and either line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use nonstick spray. I suggest parchment paper because this may get a little messy. 

For the apple pie filling, you’ll want to start out by mixing together the granulated sugar, brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, apple pie spice, and salt(dry ingredients). Then get a small sauce to pan, and over medium/high heat, pour your water in. Then add your dry ingredients and mix together with a spoon or whisk until dissolved. You’ll want to keep mixing until it comes to a boil, and then add your chopped apple. A spoon is easiest to mix together the glaze and apples, making sure that all of the apples are coated. Bring the heat down and let the apples simmer until completely soft, and the glaze is the thickness to your liking. Set aside.

As for the snickerdoodles, you’ll want to start out by creaming the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. This means you will mix relatively fast so as to add as much air into the mixture in order to get that fluffy look. I don’t have a hand mixer so I like to do this with a fork, as it will end up filling a whisk better than mixing together. Add in the eggs and vanilla, mixing until fully combined. Fold in the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt until a dough-like consistency forms. Once the dough is sticking completely to itself, set aside and mix together your granulated sugar and cinnamon coating in a small bowl. Then you can start scooping out dough and rolling it into a ball. Take the ball and roll it in the coating until completely covered. You’re going to want these to be around 1 ½ to 2 inches in diameter so ensure they will be big enough to have a nice well in the center. Place each ball about 2 inches apart, as they will spread fairly large. Bake for 8 minutes, or until the very bottom of the cookie is just barely starting to brown. Take them out of the oven after those 8 minutes, and quickly make indents in the middle of the cookies before they cool down too much. Make them as large as you desire, it depends on how much of the apple pie filling you want in them. Add the apple pie filling to your indents.

Place cookies back in the oven for 2-3 minutes. While these are baking, you’ll want to heat up your caramel sauce in the microwave and mix together the white icing (if you want, they’ll be just as good without). Once back out of the oven, use a fork to drizzle your caramel and icing. Then you’re done! These are really good if you eat them while they are still a little warm!