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These Apple Butter Snickerdoodles are an easy snickerdoodle recipe made with apple butter and a warm cinnamon sugar coating. These snickerdoodles soft and chewy with a hint of apple – they’re the perfect fall cookie recipe.
This cookie recipe has been edited as of 2024 and returned to the original recipe created in 2012.
Are you guys apple butter lovers? Apple butter wasn’t ever really on my radar until a few years ago. It is the perfect fall treat and it tastes so good in these cookies. Apple Butter Snickerdoodles are another perfect fall cookie recipe; they’re soft and chewy with lots of apple and cinnamon flavor.
Ingredients Needed
- Sugar: Granulated sugar is the perfect ingredient to add sweetness to this recipe, and it helps make the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Flour: I always use All-Purpose Flour
- Cinnamon: This fall spice is a must in any fall cookie recipe.
- Apple Butter: You can use homemade or a jar (found in the peanut butter aisle).
- Butter: I used unsalted butter that’s been softened.
How to make Apple Butter Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Whisk dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
- Cream butter and sugar in a mixer until fluffy.
- Mix in eggs, vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and apple butter. Beat just until mixed. Add in flour mixture and mix until just blended together. Chill dough in a large bowl or it will be too soft to scoop.
- Preheat oven and line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Scoop balls of cookie dough and roll them in cinnamon sugar.
- Place cookie dough balls on your prepared baking sheet. Bake cookies until they lose their glossy sheen and are puffed and perfect.
Expert Tips
- The dough MUST be chilled. With the butter and the apple butter, if you bake a warm dough you’re going to get flat cookies. If you like flat cookies, go for it. But if you want a puffy cookie, please follow the chilling instructions.
- The apple butter is more of an underlying flavor – when you take a bite you’re hit with the warm cinnamon and then the slight apple flavor totally hits you.
Storage
Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days. You can also freeze the baked and cooled cookies.
Apple Butter Snickerdoodles Recipe
This is the ORIGINAL Apple Butter Snickerdoodles recipe. They are an easy snickerdoodle recipe made with apple butter and warm cinnamon. These snickerdoodles soft and chewy and are the perfect fall cookie recipe.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Chill time 4 hours
Total Time 4 hours 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 3 cups (372g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter softened
- 1 ¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup Apple Butter
- ½ tsp cinnamon
For the topping:
- ⅓ cup (67g) granualted sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Cream butter and 1 ¼ cups sugar in a mixer until fluffy. Mix in eggs, vanilla, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and apple butter.
- Beat just until mixed. Add in flour mixture and mix until just blended together. Chill your dough at least 2 hours.
- This dough MUST be cold before baking. Because of all the butter and apple butter, the cookies will spread quite a bit if you skip the chilling!
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment or a silpat baking mat.
- Place 1 teaspoon cinnamon and ⅓ cup sugar in a small bowl.
- Scoop balls of cookie dough (mine were done using a 1 or 2 tablespoon cookie scoop) and roll them in the cinnamon sugar.
- Place on your cookie sheet. I recommend only scooping 2 cookie sheets at a time, then re-chill the dough for while those two trays bake.
- Bake cookies for 11-15 minutes or until they're no longer glossy and light golden around the edges. Cool at least 10 minutes before removing from cookie sheets.
Recipe Video
Recipe Nutrition
Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 141kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 24mg | Sodium: 70mg | Potassium: 53mg | Sugar: 10g | Vitamin A: 170IU | Calcium: 18mg | Iron: 0.7mg
Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate
Delicious autumn cookie! And what a great way to feature apple butter!
I made these using tweaks by commenter “Rebekah”:
– increased apple butter to 1 cup (a VERY) good move)
– decreased the butter to 1 stick | 1/2 cup (because of the extra apple butter)
I also used only 1 tsp vanilla and 1 cup sugar.
I was a little perplexed by the very cakey vs. chewy texture. It’s still delicious, but not perfect for a snickerdoodle. Not the fault of Dorothy’s recipe–I’m sure it’s the result of my tinkering. Supposedly, melting the butter will give a chewier result. Also I may have to add that 1/4 cup of butter back in.
That said, this is a DELICIOUS cookie recipe–thank you, Dorothy! And there’s lots of room for fun experimentation! I want to try replacing 1/2 cup of flour with 1/2 cup of ground walnuts (which complement apples so well!). And my husband is begging me to add raisins, so that’s another batch. Lots of apple butter snickerdoodles in my future!
Great flavor, baked well, looks beautiful. It’s a bit too cake-like for me though. Is there a modification to make it more dense?
If you want it more dense, you could add more flour.
They’re fine, but I wasn’t impressed. Like other commentors, mine also didn’t spread, and I didn’t taste any apple which was rather disappointing.
I made the recipe exactly as written. And while the flavor was good, the texture wasn’t anything at all like a traditional snickerdoodle. The cookies didn’t spread at all, they were soft and cakey. Just not the texture I was hoping for.
I adore this recipe! I’ve been making it for a few years now as I make my own apple butter each year and it’s a great use for the extra jars I have. I absolutely make the dough and leave it in the fridge overnight (mom who works full time and goes to school here) and, I’ll add a fall twist to the cookies. In addition to the cinnamon, I’ll add 1/8 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp ginger, and a pinch of cloves (~1/16 tsp but who can measure that?). These cookies are a favorite among friends and family. Thanks so much for a fantastic recipe!
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