Apple Spice Cookies

When Sally and I first saw this recipe, we were excited to bake a cookie that "tasted like apple pie."  Ooo, a pie-cookie.  It sounded delicious, and a great way to use the random apples sitting in our fruit bowl.

But in the end, the cookies became more like muffin-cookies, rather than pie-cookies.  They were fluffy (perhaps due to my overzealous sprinkling of baking soda), not dense like I imagine pie-cookies should be.  They also didn't taste much like apples... So Sally and I took it upon ourselves to make some modifications.  The dough was pretty wet, so we added oatmeal to decrease the moisture and make the cookies more dense.  We also added cranberries (yes!) to give them more of a zing.  They didn't taste like apple pie, but they were delicious.

Spiced Apple Cookies
adapted from here
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, tightly packed
1/4 cup whole milk
1 egg
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup chopped cranberries
1 cup unpeeled apple, peeled and finely chopped
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat together butter and brown sugar until combined. Add egg and milk and mix ingredients well.
3. In a separate bowl combine flour, soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Slowly add dry ingredients, scraping down the sides as necessary, until everything is fully combined.
4. Stir chopped apple, oatmeal, and cranberries into the batter.
5. Drop cookies by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2-inches apart on a cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are slightly browned on the edges.