Apple Pie Cookies (SRC)

What a month it's been! We moved into our new house exactly 2 weeks ago and while we still have a few boxes around, it's feeling more and more like home. I love our new oven and induction cooktop but as we don't have an induction suitable frypan it has made cooking dinner a little challenging.

But today of course is all about the Secret Recipe Club, a dedicated band of bloggers who are assigned a blog each month to secretly peruse and cook from, with everyone posting their recipes on the same day. Today is reveal day for group D.

This month I was assigned The Spiffy Cookie by Erin. In a funny coincidence she had my blog just last month! Erin has a PhD in microbiology (just like my husband), loves the combination of peanut butter and chocolate and her favourite meal is dessert.  I know I say it every time but I was really spoilt for choice when it came to recipes.

Erin recently did a round-up of her top 10 peanut butter and chocolate recipes which included a Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake that had me drooling over the computer!

Her Steel Cut Oatmeal with Bananas and Cobbler Topping looks like just the thing to pimp up our regular porridge and her Spiced Pear Smoothie sounds delicious. To round out breakfast how about baked eggs with a crispy hash brown crust?

We had most of a box of apples to use up though so I started searching for apple recipes and came up with some beauties like Homemade Apple Jelly, Apple Walnut Pancakes and just last week this Apple Pecan Praline Bread. One that really jumped out at me though were these Apple Pie Cookies which were just so cute! All the best bits of apple pie but in cookie form which I knew my kids would love. Genius right?!

I played around with a few ingredients to suit our dietary requirements but I think these are pretty close to the original and they were AMAZING. Apple pie is one of my favourite things but I don't tend to make it very often. These little cookies had all the same flavours and were exactly like mini apple pies. The recipe made 24 and they were gone in a day. As you can tell it was very hard to stop at just one!

Apple Pie Cookies
Adapted from Dorothy Kern's Dessert Mashups via The Spiffy Cookie

Base:
100 g butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 cup spelt flour
1 egg
2 tbs coconut sugar
1 ts vanilla extract

Filling:
5 granny smith apples (peeled, cored and finely diced)
1/3 cup water
1 ts cinnamon
1/4 ts ground cloves
1 tbs coconut sugar
1 tbs spelt flour

In a large bowl cream together the butter and coconut sugar, then add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Fold through the flour and almond meal until incorporated into a thick dough. Spoon the mixture onto plastic wrap, wrap well and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the apples. Peel, core and finely dice the apples. Place in a medium pan with 1/3 cup water and the spices and cook over low-medium heat until just tender. Drain and place into a heat proof bowl. Sprinkle over the coconut sugar and flour and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 x 12 hole mini muffin pans.

Place a tablespoon of dough into each muffin hole and press over the base and sides creating an indent for the filling. Spoon a teaspoon of apple filling into each cookie.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out and dusting with icing sugar. Delicious warm from the oven.

Makes 24 cookies

Thanks for a great month Erin! :)

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