A Sweet Treat for Anytime

A Sweet Treat for Anytime
Nicola A. Jones

This holiday I decided to try a variety of new cookie recipes. I found a wonderful recipe for applesauce-honey cookies, which after making the kids simply adored. The recipe tells you to chill the dough for one hour, but I found that it worked better if you leave it in the fridge for longer. The dough is also very soft, so if you wanted to you could easily add half a cup of rolled oats to increase the nutritional value of the cookie, and make it somewhat stiffer of dough. Make sure that you thoroughly coat the surface you are working on in flour as well as your hands because the dough is very sticky because of the honey in the recipe. The taste of the cookie is very mild apple tasting, and can easily be spiced up with additional cinnamon and ginger, or you might think about adding dried apple chunks, dried cranberries, orange peel, or nuts to the dough. You can also make up a big batch, and keep it stored in the fridge for up to a week as long as it is sealed tightly in plastic wrap and wax paper. The cookies keep well in air tight containers, and make a nice sweet after school snack or accompany tea well.

The following recipe comes from Great American Home Baking, which was a mail order card recipe program during the 90’s. There is no publisher listed, or publication dates.

Applesauce-Honey Cookies
10 minutes preparation, 1 hour chilling, 14 minutes baking per batch
Makes 3 1/2 dozen cookies

2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tablespoon honey, at room temperature

1. Mix together flour, backing powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt.
2. Beat together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Beat in egg, applesauce, and honey. At low speed, beat in flour mixture until well combined. Shape dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 375* F. Grease 2 baking sheets.
4. On a floured surface, using floured hands roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place cookies 2 inches apart, on prepared baking sheets. Using a floured fork, firmly flatten each cookie, leaving deep grooves.
5. Bake cookies until just set and golden, 14 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to wire racks to cool for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.
If you want to add in extra spices do so at step 1. I would recommend adding ¼ tsp. nutmeg and ¼ orange zest, but experiment and find the blend that you enjoy most. Try adding a ½ cup of rolled oats after blending in the flour mixture in step 2. Add dried fruit or nuts before shaping if you so desire. Keep in mind that at this point the consistency of the dough is like a thick sticky paste. The end results are light, fluffy cookies, which are moist and delicious. Happy baking everyone!