Apple Butterscotch Cookies Recipe
These Apple Butterscotch Cookies are one of the best desserts you will ever put in your mouth. Made from scratch, these cake-like, soft cookies are decadent and a great dessert for sharing with friends and family. With cinnamon and nutmeg, these have all the seasonal fall flavors that you love for Thanksgiving and beyond.
Why You’ll Love These Apple Cookies
Apple Butterscotch Cookies are your new favorite cookie recipe that you might not have tried yet.
With warm spices and butterscotch chips, these apple cookies are super soft, more cakey than crispy, and full of flavor.
Related: Butterscotch Walnut Cookies
Fall is the perfect time to make these but of course, these are an amazing dessert you can enjoy all year long.
This is a cookie recipe I always bring to parties because it is unique, and not many people have tried it. Spoiler: It is ALWAYS a hit! Be prepared to share this recipe. They will ask.
Apple Cookies with Butterscotch are easy to make and are something you will crave. Sorry!
NOTE: As I am not a trained baker, I want to make a note about the final baked cookies. These are very soft, and they crumble and fall apart very easily.
The recipe probably needs to be tweaked to make them a little sturdier. I just don’t know what that is. The flavor is THE BEST! but the texture is not the best.
If you know how to improve it, please do that! I love easy desserts but I’m definitely not an expert baker!
Ingredients
- apples, chopped
- butterscotch chips
- brown sugar
- butter
- eggs
- milk
- flour
- baking powder
- salt
- cinnamon
- cloves
- nutmeg
These cookies have all the flavors of fall, including nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. This recipe also calls for brown sugar, which adds even more flavor.
I used honeycrisp apples since they are my favorite. I think they taste amazing, but if you feel like you want to swap them out for another type, by all means, be my guest. I’ve also used Red Delicious apples, and they were also delish.
I usually add more than 6 oz. of the chips because the bag has more. My cookies tend to be jam-packed with butterscotch.
How to Make Apple Butterscotch Cookies
Step 1
In a medium-sized bowl, add flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Mix well and set aside.
The cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves smell so good. Feel free to leave out a spice if you don’t love it.
Step 2
In a larger mixing bowl, cream brown sugar and butter with a hand mixer (or stand mixer).
Then add eggs and milk and beat well.
Step 3
Beat half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients until incorporated. Then add the other half and mix well.
Step 4
Stir in chopped apples and butterscotch chips to the cookie batter and mix it up.
You can see in the photo above how large I left the apples. I like nice, big chunks in my cookies. But you can absolutely cut them smaller if you prefer it.
Also, the apples are peeled. The skin would become chewy and we don’t want that.
This is where you would also add the walnuts if using (see my FAQs!)
Step 5
Drop the batter onto cookie sheets. I used parchment paper but you could also use a Silpat sheet if you have one.
The cookies do spread a bit so be sure to space them out and not overcrowd your pan.
Step 6
Bake at 400 degrees for about 12 minutes or until golden brown.
TIP: I added a little bit of Maldon sea salt to some of the cookies before baking. I love that sweet and salty combo in my desserts.
Step 7
Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and let them cool on cooling racks.
Yield
The original recipe says it makes 4 dozen cookies. I got about 2 dozen from the recipe. This could also be why they fall apart. If I made them smaller, they wouldn’t crumble as much, I think.
I think the apples have extra moisture that helps to keep the cookies moist but also means they don’t last as long once baked.
My 11 year old ate one of these cookies and said, “These taste like Christmas!!!” Which is funny, because they are one of my go-to holiday cookies. But also the spices…
If you love these warm, seasonal spices like I do you may also want to make my Nutmeg Cake.
How to store these cookies
I stored these cookies in an air-tight container and they were great for a day or two. After that, they started to get even more crumbly. I’m not a quitter so I ate all of them, but to ensure freshness, I would only keep them for a few days.
Tips
These Butterscotch Apple Cookies are best served fresh. And unfortunately, they don’t travel well.
After reading this post, I realized these cookies sound super flawed. But the flavor more than makes up for it. They are that tasty!
Someone left a comment that suggested chilling the dough in the refrigerator before baking to help with the consistency but I haven’t tried it yet!
Frequently Asked Questions
The original recipe also calls for walnuts, but we usually leave out all nuts because we have a nut allergy in our house. So feel free to add them back in!
If you’re having trouble getting hold of them white chocolate chips would be a good substitute I think. Or you could use a mix of both, which would also be delicious.
More easy cookies
- Orange Snickerdoodles
- Angel Food Cake Cookies
- Oatmeal Cake Mix Cookies
- Holiday Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies with M&Ms
- Cherry Chip Cake Mix Cookies
- Carrot Cake Cake Mix Cookies
- Sunbutter Cookies
- Mayonnaise Cookies (Trust me)
- Caramel Brownie Cookies
- Peppermint Marble Cookies
- Lucky Charms Cookies
More easy apple recipes
- Healthy Greek Yogurt Dip for Fruit
- Best Slow Cooker Apple Dump Cake
- Cinnamon Apple Dip
- How To Make Microwave Applesauce
Save this and Pin it for later!
If you want to save this recipe make sure you Pin it for later! If you are not already you can follow me on Pinterest, as well as keep up with me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. If you make this recipe make sure to tag me in your photos and leave a star rating below!
Apple Butterscotch Cookies
Ingredients
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together brown sugar and butter with a hand mixer or stand mixer.
- Add eggs and milk; beat well.
- Mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg in a small bowl.
- Add 1/2 the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finish with the second half and mix until combined.
- Stir in apples, butterscotch chips and walnuts, if using.
- Drop by tablespoon on well-greased baking sheets (or use parchment).
- Bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.
- Remove from baking sheets immediately; cool on racks.
- Makes about 4 dozen cookies (or 2 dozen if you made ginormous cookies like I did).
Great flavor. I felt the batter was more cake like than cookie batter, so I baked it in a 9×13 pan at 375° for about half an hour. I also added some apple pie spice to the dry ingredients. I made a glaze by melting the remaining butterscotch chips from the bag with a tbsp of butter. I added powered sugar and milk to the right consistency to drizzle over the cake. I’ll definitely make this again.
I agree, the consistency is much more cake like. I think making it into a sheet cake makes so much sense! And love the glaze idea! Thank you for sharing!
I made these and used the batter to make muffins instead of cookies and they turned out delicious!
Sept. 2021 WOW WOW WOW THANK YOU From a lifelong 40+ years love cooking and baking I just made these APPLE/Butterscotch cookies and must write to say these are “out of this world delicious” and all time BEST EVER cookies. I refrigerated the dough mix overnight. I used Parchment Paper on the baking sheets. The taste of these cookies is so superb and the baked texture perfecto! Thank you Sharon G. I will follow your recipes
So glad you love them! I really need to make a batch of these soon!
This Is Why You Should Chill Cookie Dough | Taste of Homehttps://www.tasteofhome.com › … › Baking
Jul 8, 2019 — Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you …
Thank you for this tip! I’ll have to try that. I usually skip recipes that have extra steps like that because I’m lazy, but these cookies are worth it!
I made these today. Instead of creaming the butter and sugar normally, I melted the butter and used evaporated milk instead of regular milk. It turned out like a cross between a cookie and a cake. Haha. I liked it tho :) thanks for the recipe!
Interesting swap outs! The cookie/cake combo doesn’t sound half bad!
hi- could NOT find my recipe – BUT did find yours. very similar- i think it is the same- except for aplle juice….. however– with mine i somehow melted some butterscotch and made a drizzle from that….. the drizzle made it very sweet but very excellent…. half with the drizzle and half w/o went out on the table…. n-e way- in a hurry— just wanted to say a big THANKS!!
Oh my gosh that drizzle sounds amazing!!! I will have to try that!