Name: Soft Cookies with Chopped Apple
Prep time: 10 min
Yield: 18 cookies
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour; 0.25 cup whole grain rice flour; 1 egg; 0.3 cup ricotta; 2 tablespoons sugar (about 40 g); 3 tablespoons corn or sunflower seed oil; 1 cup apple (chopped); 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 tablespoon pine nuts; 18 almonds; apple (as desired for decoration)

I baked these soft cookies with chopped apple a few afternoons ago.

I quickly made them for my son’s and his friend’s snack, who showed up just as I was saying “I’ve run out of everything, I have to go shopping!, I’ve run out of everything, my fridge is empty!, I’ve run out of everythiiiiing!”. So I was about to go shopping armed with a very long grocery list.

Having a guest with an empty pantry gave me a couple of minutes of typical Italian moms and grandmas’ anxiety: “and now? what do I feed these two poor, undernourished, hungry teenagers?”. 😂

Skipping the grocery trip in favor of this new urgent need, I started rummaging through the kitchen cupboards in the (im)possible mission to save the snack (but above all my reputation! I mean: I’m disorganized, it’s true, but others don’t have to know it! 😄).

But then… in the end, let’s face it, that “I’ve run out of everything” is not always true. Basically, those two or three basic ingredients, like flour, oil, and sugar, are always there in a house, right? And more or less I had them.

Not only! While rummaging in the kitchen I also found some unsuspected things I didn’t remember having!, like a little bag of pine nuts, rice flour (but when did I buy it??? no idea!!!), one last egg, all alone, and so I decided that I had what I needed to make quick muffins.

While mixing flour and egg and oil and ricotta (no, I never run out of that)… I glanced at the fruit bowl, and among the two oranges + three apples present there, I reached out for the apples.

Deciding to use the apples in this improvised recipe was a conditioned reflex, my blogger colleagues can surely understand me. Why? Well, because today’s ingredient for Light and Tasty is… ta-da… apples!!!

PS: “I decided to make quick muffins” is not a typo, that was the actual intent, and it was until almost the end of the preparation. Then the instinctive attraction I have for spooned cookies, as you well know, drew me back, and so the muffins became the soft apple cookies that I’m now telling you about. 😊

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Difficulty: Very easy
Cost: Very cheap
Preparation time: 10 Minutes
Portions: 18 cookies
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
0.25 cup whole grain rice flour
1 egg
0.3 cup ricotta
2 tablespoons sugar (about 40 g)
3 tablespoons corn or sunflower seed oil
1 cup apple (chopped)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon pine nuts
18 almonds
apple (as desired for decoration)

Tools

Food Processor
Frying Pan non-stick
Bowl

How to Make Soft Cookies with Apple (Chopped)

First, peel an apple and chop it coarsely with a small food processor (but a knife is fine too, of course).
Toast the pine nuts in a non-stick skillet.
Optionally toast the almonds too. Generally, I use almonds without toasting them but this time I wanted to try.
Break the egg into a bowl, add a couple of tablespoons of sugar and stir briefly with a spoon. No need to whip the egg, just dissolve the sugar.
Add the other liquid ingredients, namely the oil and ricotta (if you don’t have ricotta, yogurt will do).
Mix well with a spoon.
Add the baking powder and gradually add the two flours, always stirring with the spoon.
Once you have a smooth and lump-free mixture, add the chopped apple.
Cover the baking tray or a sheet pan with a piece of parchment paper.
Spoon small portions of the mixture.
Add an almond and some toasted pine nuts in the center of each portion.
If you want, the cookies can be baked already at this point, but I liked the idea of getting cookies with a surprise almond, so I covered them with more mixture (then close well using the back of the spoon).
Decorate as you wish with more pine nuts and/or apple (in pieces or slices).
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes.
👉 I tried leaving some cookies in the oven longer (extending the stay even with the oven off). They turned out drier, darker, and crispier. Equally very good, but we all unanimously declared the lighter cookies better, because they were softer and more donut-like and also because the apple flavor remained well present, while in the more cooked cookies the charring of the pine nuts and the outer part somewhat covered the apple flavor.
Considering the softness of these cookies, I am sure that with this same recipe you can also get excellent muffins. Let’s try it at the next opportunity!
If you need a super-fast recipe for your kids’ snack or breakfast, I recommend trying these soft apple cookies, I’m sure you’ll like them. Here they disappeared quickly and were praised by everyone, even by the two teenagers, which I assure you is no small feat! 😉😄
Let me know!!