Apples and cinnamon combine in light, fluffy, and delicious Apple Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting that is a true family favorite.

Closeup on two Apple Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting (one frosted, one not frosted) laying on a white surface.

These Apple Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting are a true family favorite. The tastes of apple and cinnamon combine with a cakey cookie to give you a true bite of Fall and Winter.  The light and fluffy cookie, chock full of apples.  So yummy!  Add on the sweet cream cheese frosting and you have a cookie that will be perfect for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and especially a Christmas Cookie Exchange. Your family will ask you to make them again and again!

Collage image showing the steps on how to make the Apple Cookie dough.

Step 1: In a large bowl, add the softened butter and sugars and mix until light and fluffy. (About 3 minutes.)
Step 2: Add the eggs and vanilla and mix for an additional 2-3 minutes.
Step 3: Add in the cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix until combined.
Step 4: Add half the flour and mix just until combined. Do not overmix once you have added the flour.

Collage image showing how to add the apples and the dry ingredients into the cookie dough.

Step 5: Peel and dice a tart apple green apple.
Step 6: Add in 1 cup of apples and mix with a spoon.
Step 7: Add the other half of the flour and combine until the flour is completely incorporated into the cookie dough.
Step 8: The dough will be slightly “wet”, that is what you want.

Baking Instructions

Collage image showing the apple cookie before they go into the oven and after they come out of the oven.

Step 9: We used an ice cream scooper to make a drop of cookie dough that is approximately 2 oz.  Bake the cookies in a 350-degree oven for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.
Step 10: This is what the cookies look like just out of the oven.  Golden brown and delicious and chock full of yummy apples.  Allow them to cool before frosting them.

Frosting the Apple Cookies

Closeup on a white bowl filled with Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting surrounded by the Apple Cookies.

Step 11: Top off these delicious cakey cookies with our The Best Cream Cheese Frosting. You will find the recipe and all the tips and tricks you need to make this Cream Cheese Frosting right here

Collage image showing how to frost the Apple Cookies.

Step 12: Frost the Apple Cookies with the Cream Cheese Frosting.
Step 13: We dusted cinnamon over the Cream Cheese Frosting as a final touch to these yummy Apple Cookies.

If you liked our Pumpkin Spice Cookies you’ll love these Apple Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting.  

Expert Tips and FAQ’s

Use Room Temperature Ingredients

Both the eggs and the butter should be at room temperature which will help your cookies turn out lighter and fluffier.  For the eggs, room temperature simply means not cold out of the refrigerator. If you forget to take the eggs out before you start making cookie dough you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up.  The butter also needs to be softened to room temperature which means if you touch it you should leave an indentation on the stick of butter. Do not use butter that has been over-softened or melted.  If that happens you should use a different stick of butter or put it back into the refrigerator to let it set up.  We have a whole post about How to Soften Butter, click here if you need more information on how to do that.

Do you need to use a Mixer?

Yes. In our opinion, you need some kind of a mixer to make a good cookie dough. A stand mixer, while expensive, is a great investment if you believe you have a lot of homemade baked goods in your future. An electric hand-mixer also works well and you can probably find one for around $20. You can hand mix cookie dough in a pinch (which is how we did it growing up), but you will really have to use a lot of muscle to cream the butter and sugar, and eggs properly.

Cookie Dough Mixing Tips

Creaming the butter, sugar and then mixing the eggs in is the most important part of the cookie dough mixing process. Creaming is when you fully incorporate the butter and sugar together and add some much-needed air to the dough. We recommend creaming the butter and sugar for 3 minutes at medium-high speed and then mixing the butter/sugar/eggs for another 3 minutes at the same speed. Once you add the flour, you want to mix the dough as little as possible. Mix it too much and you will get tough cookies. Mix in the flour at low speed and continue mixing ONLY until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Make sure you scrape down the sides and the bottom to make sure all the flour has gotten mixed in.

Prepping the Cookie Sheet

We always line our cookie sheets with a piece of parchment paper, it keeps the cookie from sticking to the sheet and from over-browning. You can find parchment paper either in rolls or in pre-cut sheets in most grocery stores, and we highly recommend it. Ideally, you should use at least 2 cookie sheets when baking cookies. You don’t want to add the raw cookie dough to a cookie sheet that is hot out of the oven. The dough will start baking even before you get it in the oven.

Use an Ice Cream Scooper or a Scale to get perfectly sized cookies

Cookie size is a matter of personal taste. The important part is making them all the same size so they bake evenly. We like a good-sized cookie, so we use a medium-sized cookie dough scoop that makes a portion that has approximately 2 tablespoons of cookie dough. You can also pull out your food scale and measure the cookie dough.

Oven Tips

Everyone’s oven is different. We recommend starting with a test bake with a single cookie to help you hone in on the exact baking time for your oven. You should set your timer for 2 minutes less than whatever the recipe recommends. Once the timer goes off, open up the oven and see how your cookie is baking. Make corrections accordingly. Our oven has a hot spot in the back so we always rotate the cookie sheet halfway through the baking time to get a more even bake. Although this may seem like an unnecessary step, it is better to do this than burn a whole tray of cookies.

Storage/Freezing Tips

Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container.  They should be completely cooled before storing them. Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.

Closeup on a stack of three Apple Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting sitting on a cutting board in front of a red towel and red and green apples.

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Apple Cookies and Cream Cheese Frosting

Yield 24 cookies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Apples and cinnamon combine in light, fluffy and delicious Apple Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting that is a true family favorite.

Ingredients

Cookies:

  • 1 cup Butter (Sweet Cream Salted, softened)
  • 1 cup Granulated Sugar
  • 1/2 cup Brown Sugar (packed)
  • 2 Large Eggs
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 3 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons Cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon Salt
  • 1 cup finely diced and peeled tart Apples
  • The Best Cream Cheese Frosting

Instructions

Cookies

  1. Peel and dice 1 cup of tart apples.
  2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
  3. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
  4. Mix in cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix well.
  5. Add 1 3/4 cups of flour and mix until combined.
  6. Add in 1 cup of apples and mix with a spoon.
  7. Add the remaining 1 3/4 cups of flour and combine until the flour is completely incorporated into the cookie dough.
  8. Bake the cookies in a 350-degree oven for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.
  9. Allow cookies to cool.
  10. Frost the cookies with our The Best Cream Cheese Frosting
  11. Sprinkle with a dash of Cinnamon (optional)

Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!