Apple Raisin Walnut Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

• Butter unsalted 
• Light brown sugar 
• Sugar white
• Egg
• Vanilla bean paste
• Apple juice
• All-purpose flour
• Ground cinnamon
•  Ground ginger
• Baking powder
• Old fashion oats 
• Kosher Salt
• Granny Smith apple
• Seedless white raisins
• Chopped walnuts

Substitution of Ingredients

Old-fashion oats-You can use quick oats instead of the old-fashion but keep an eye on the baking time. They tend to bake a little faster.

Vanilla bean paste-You can use vanilla extract in place of vanilla bean paste. One teaspoon of the paste equals one teaspoon of extract. The extract does not have specks of vanilla bean seeds from the pods like the paste does.

Seedless white raisins- If you only have regular raisins, you can use them and make them plump like their golden cousin. First, add the regular raisins to a bowl of hot water and let soak for 15 minutes. Then add the raisins to a strainer to drain. I then lay them out on a paper towel to absorb more of the water.

Chopped walnuts-If you do not have any walnuts, you can substitute pecan or almonds and chop them into small pieces. I picked walnuts mainly because I like walnuts and apples together.

How to Dice Apples

I use this corer from Amazon called a 12-Blade Extra Large Apple Corer to make quick work of coring and slicing an apple. They are not expensive and will last for years.

Dice half a Granny Smith apple into a bowl. Now apples brown quickly after the skin is peeled off and cut up. Although you can wait to dice the apple at the last minute, an alternative would be to squeeze a little lemon juice over the apple pieces. You want as little as possible since this is not a lemon cookie.

If you add too much lemon juice, lay the apple pieces on a paper towel to absorb some of the lemon juice and liquid from the apple.

Making Apple Oatmeal Cookies

Prep for making the cookies by weighing or measuring the white sugar and the light brown sugar into a small bowl and setting it aside. In another bowl, weigh or measure the flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger, running a whisk to blend them.

Add the room temperature butter and both sugars to a mixer bowl. Mix on a medium speed for at least 3 minutes. You want as much sugar as possible to incorporate into the butter.

Next, add the vanilla bean paste, apple juice, and egg, blending until mixed. Scrape the sides and add the dry ingredients on a low speed. Finally, add the raisins, chopped walnuts, and diced apple pieces.

Loosely cover the top of the mixer bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Using a medium-sized cookie scooper, place 12 balls on a parchment-lined cookie sheet pan. The cookie dough is a little tacky, so to make it easy to flatten into thick disk shapes, I put a piece of parchment paper between the bottom of the glass and the cookie ball.

Try not to flatten them too much, or they will be thin and crips. They tend to get crumbly if they are too thin. I leave a good 2 inches between the cookies.

Bake at 350°F (175°C or 180°C) for 12-14 minutes. They will be soft on the top but not shiny. Leave them on the pan for 3 minutes after pulling them from the oven. Then move them to a wire cooling rack to cool. Great almost fall cookie!!!

Storage

These are pretty hardy cookies and be stored in almost any cookie container for 5-7 days. If the oatmeal starts to make the cookies crumbly, you can stick a small piece of bread or a saltine cracker near the cookies. Try not to let the bread or cracker touch the cookies.