Apple OH-NOatmeal Cookies
“OH NO!” That’s what people will say when they see the giant comet hurtling towards earth, or the throngs of nuclear missiles screaming their way back to the ground, or a horde of sentient robots intent on murdering all of humanity. Sure it could be something one says mildly when they knock over their cup of water.
Anyways, these cookies will make you say “oh no!” in a different way because oh no, they’re so good all other cookies will always taste bad in comparison to these!! Buckle in because this recipe is a long one and a lot of steps.
I learned this method of filling cookies from the first Pastry Chef that I ever worked with, Kristin Feuer. She taught me so much.
First things first, there is some equipment that you’re going to need that isn’t your normal cooking making equipment. These things will make your life a WHOLE lot easier.
The things you’ll need are in the picture up above:
a black portion scoop (or you can scoop and weigh 3/4 oz portions of dough too).
a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter
a tool like the one on the left like an espresso tamper or really ANYTHING that’s flat on the bottom and will fit in the center of the cookie cutter but leave a little space and not fill up the whole 2 1/2 inches.
a bowl of flour
These things are all going to come in handy when you get to the scooping portion of the cookie.
Alright once you have these items we can get started! Let’s make the dough first. The dough is made using the creaming method. I’m not going to go into TOO much detail about that here, but if you check out my SUPERNOVAnilla cookie recipe, you’ll find an in-depth description.
So the basics of creaming method…you’re going to combine your room temperature SOFT butter, brown sugar, regular sugar, and salt in the bowl of your mixer and attach the paddle attachment. Mix on low until there are no more chunks of butter visible. Use a rubber spatula and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Begin mixing again on medium and mix until the butter mixture is lighter and it looks fluffy. Once again, scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add in your eggs one at a time, mixing each in completely before adding another. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add your vanilla. Mix all of that together until COMPLETELY smooth.
While that mixes, sift together the flour, cake flour, cinnamon, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Add in your oats and mix together.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl on your mixer and add in your dry ingredients in two portions. Mix them in on low until they’re JUST combined, and scrape the bowl in between each addition. Transfer your dough into the bowl you used to sift your flour into, and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rest for about 20 minutes.
While the dough rests, make your apple butter! The Apple butter is super easy. First, Peel and slice your apples, and let the slices soak in a bowl of water and juice of 1/2 of lemon. Then brown your butter in a medium pot on the stove. Once the butter is browned, remove the pot from heat and strain your apples from the water. Add the apples, sugar, corn starch, and salt to the pot and mix. make sure the apples are all covered. Return the pot to the heat and cook until the apples are soft.
Remove from heat once again and let cool slightly. When it’s cooled a little, pour it into either a blender or food processor and blend until mostly smooth. You can definitely leave it more chunky if you’d like I just wanted a nice smooth filling.
Pour your apple butter into a heat safe container and let it cool.
Alright now’s the part that gets a little complicated but it’s what will make you able to make delicious fun filled cookies. Remember those tools I showed you earlier? Grab those and a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
Using the black portion scoop, scoop out your cookie dough into 6 alternating rows of three like this!
They’ll look round still when you place them on the sheet but this next step will make them flat like above.
Once you’ve scooped your dough, take your cookie cutter and flat tool and dip them both in flour. You’re going to want to dip them in the flour in between EACH one otherwise they’ll get too sticky.
So dip your tools in the flour then place the cookie cutter around one dough ball, then using the flat tool, press the dough down so that there is a flat well in the center of the dough, and the edges spread to the size of the cookie cutter.
Repeat this process until you run out of cookie dough, it should make about 40-42 rounds. Once you’ve scooped and pressed all of your dough, chill it in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
Once the dough has chilled, remove it from the fridge and fill HALF of the wells you created with the apple butter. I like to just do like every other row.
once you’ve filled one half of the cookies, take one empty half of the dough and turn it upside down over the top of the filled dough.
Repeat this for all of the cookies. You should end up with about 20-21 cookies. Return the cookies to the fridge and let them chill for another 30 minutes.
Finally bake the cookies at 350ºF for about 15-20 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and the center is no longer shiny.
Let cookies cool then enjoy all your hard work!!
Apple OH-NOatmeal Cookies
- prep time: about 1 hour 20 mins
- cook time: 20 mins
- total time: 1 hour 45
Servings: 20-21 cookies
Oatmeal Cookie Dough:
Ingredients:
- ¾ c. + 2T Butter, room temp (350 g.)
- 1 tsp Salt (5 g.)
- 1 ¼ c. + 1T Brown Sugar (250 g.)
- 1 ¼ c. + 1T Sugar (275 g.)
- 3 ea. Eggs (about 180 g.)
- 1 T Vanilla (9 g.)
- 2 ¼ c. + 2T AP Flour (363 g.)
- ½ c Cake Flour (75 g.)
- 3 c Oats (300 g.)
- 1 tsp Baking Soda (5 g.)
- 2 ½ tsp Cinnamon, Ground (8 g.)
Instructions:
- Combine butter, both sugars, and salt in the bowl of your mixer and mix with paddle attachment until fluffy and there are no more chunks of butter visible.
- Scrape down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula and mix more.
- Scrape down sides again, then add in your eggs one by one, mixing each until completely incorporated.
- Scrape down sides again then add vanilla and mix until smooth.
- While that mixes... sift flours, baking soda and cinnamon together into a medium bowl.
- Add oats and whisk together.
- Scrape down the sides of your mixer’s bowl once again, and then add your dry ingredients in 2 parts.
- Mix dry ingredients until JUST combined, there can be a pocket or two of dries.
- Remove dough from mixing bowl into the bowl you sifted your flour into (saves a dish to have to clean later!) and finish mixing the dries in by hand.
- Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.
- While that rests, make your Apple Butter!
Apple Butter:
Ingredients:
- 2 ea Apples, peeled and sliced.
- ½ ea. Lemon Juice
- 6 T Butter, browned
- ¾ c. Brown Sugar
- ½ tsp. Salt
- ¼ tsp. Vanilla (Paste or extract works too)
- 1 ½ tsp. Corn Starch
- 2 T Bourbon (optional)
Instructions:
- Peel and slice your apples and let them soak in a bowl filled with water and juice of ½ lemon.
- Brown your butter in a large pot on the stove, remove from heat and let cool slightly.
- Strain apples from water and add to pot.
- Add brown sugar, salt, vanilla, corn starch, and bourbon to the pot and mix together, then return to heat.
- Mixing frequently bring everything to a simmer, the corn starch should help thicken everything just a little bit.
- Once the apples are soft (it took me about 10 minutes) remove from heat and let cool slightly.
- Using either a blender or food processor, blend your apple mixture until it’s as smooth as you can get it, mine didn’t get 100% smooth but that’s ok.
- Let apple butter cool until needed.
Building and Baking the Cookies:
Special Tools Needed:
- 2 ½ inch round cookie cutter
- Espresso tamper or something flat that’ll fit inside the cookie cutter and will leave a little space.
- Bowl of flour
Instructions:
- Using a black portion scoop (or you can eyeball them if you want it’s just faster with the scoop), scoop your cookie dough out onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
- Separate the dough scoops so they lie in 6 offset rows of 3.
- Dip both the cookie cutter and tamper into a cup of flour in between EACH cookie you do.
- Place the cookie cutter around a dough ball, then using the tamper, press each dough ball so it’s got a little well in the middle of it.
- Continue with each scoop of cookie dough until no more dough remains to be scooped and pressed.
- Chill the dough for 15-20 minutes.
- Removing dough 1 sheet at a time, scoop some apple butter into the well you created on EVERY OTHER cookie.
- Repeat for all cookies.
- Take the empty cookie doughs and turn them upside down, then place each over a filled cookie dough.
- Chill again for 20 - 30 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350ºF
- Bake cookies 6 to a regular sized cookie sheet for about 18-20 minutes, or until the center of the cookie is no longer shiny and the edges are golden brown.
- Enjoy your hard work!
- Freeze any remaining cookie dough for up to a month.