Name: Soft Cookies with Chopped Apple
Prep time: 10 min
Yield: 18 cookies
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1 cup cup all-purpose flour; 1/4 cup cup whole grain rice flour; 1 egg; 1/3 cup cup ricotta; 2 tablespoons sugar (about 40 g); 3 tablespoons tablespoons corn oil (or sunflower); 1 cup 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 made them quickly for the snack for my son and a friend of his, who showed up just as I was saying to myself “I’ve run out of everything, I need to go shopping!, I’ve run out of everything, my fridge is empty!, I’ve run out of everythingoo!”. In short, I was about to go shopping armed with a very long shopping list.

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

Skipping the shopping in favor of this new urgent need, I started rummaging through the kitchen doors in the (im)possible mission of saving the snack (but most importantly saving face! I mean: I’m disorganized, it’s true, but others must not know! 😁).

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

Not only! Rummaging through the kitchen I also found some unsuspected things that I didn’t remember having!, like a small bag of pine nuts, rice flour (but when did I buy it??? I don’t know!!!), one last egg, all alone, and so I decided I had enough to make some 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 for the apples.

Deciding to use 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-dah… apples!!!

PS: “I decided to make quick muffins” is not a typo, that was the real intention, and it was until almost the end of the preparation. Then my instinctive attraction to spoon-drop cookies, which you know well, caught me again, and so the muffins became the soft cookies with apple that I now tell 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 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cup whole grain rice flour
1 egg
1/3 cup cup ricotta
2 tablespoons sugar (about 40 g)
3 tablespoons tablespoons corn oil (or sunflower)
1 cup cup apple (chopped)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon pine nuts
18 almonds
apple (as desired for decoration)

Tools

Chopper
Pan non-stick
Bowl

How to Make Soft Cookies with Chopped Apple

First, peel an apple and chop it coarsely with a small food processor (but a knife works fine, of course).
Toast the pine nuts in a non-stick pan.
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 briefly mix with a spoon. There is no need to beat the egg, just dissolve the sugar.
Pour the other wet ingredients, namely the oil and ricotta (if you don’t have ricotta, yogurt works fine).
Mix well with the spoon.
Add the baking powder and gradually pour in the two flours, always mixing with the spoon.
Once you have a smooth and lump-free mixture, add the chopped apple.
Cover the baking sheet, or a tray, with a parchment paper sheet.
Spoon small portions of the mixture.
Add an almond and some toasted pine nuts to the center of each portion.
If you want, the cookies can be baked at this point, but I liked the idea of having cookies with a surprise almond, so I covered them with more mixture (then close well using the back of the spoon).
Decorate as you like with more pine nuts and/or apple (in pieces or slices).
Bake at 392°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes.
👉 I tried leaving some cookies in the oven longer (extending the stay even in the turned-off oven). They turned out drier, darker, and crunchier. Still very good, but we all unanimously declared the lighter cookies better, as they were softer and more cake-like and also because the apple flavor remained well present, while in the more baked cookies the burning of the pine nuts and the outer part slightly covered the apple flavor.
Given the softness of these cookies, with this same recipe I’m sure you can also make great muffins. We just have to try it next time!
If you need a super quick recipe for your kids’ snack, or for breakfast, I recommend trying these soft cookies with apple, I am sure you will like them. Here they went like hotcakes and were praised by everyone, even by the two teenagers, which I assure you is quite an achievement! 😉😂
Let me know!!