Apple Pie Cookies
Ginny McMeans
Published:
November 28, 2019
Last Modified:
July 27, 2025
Apple Pie Cookies may be the perfect treat. Grated fresh apple is blended with apple pie spices. Soft, sweet, and chewy, all in one little package.
How can there be so many cookie recipes? That wasn’t a question but a statement of awe.
It always blows my mind how there are new recipes popping up on the internet by cooks and bakers around the world.
Even cookies that are vegan with no eggs or dairy are endless. They look beautiful and taste even better.
I love that there are no-bake cookies now too. They are so easy and perfect for summertime. Sometimes you just don’t even want to turn on the oven.
My husband is always trying to think up new recipes for me. He thinks there are only just so many.
I told him that all those notebooks I have been writing in are full of ideas, inspiration, and recipes. But, hey, bring it on. Of course, the first word out of his mouth is Vanilla.
Something like this Starbuck’s copycat in the shape of vanilla dunkers. Vanilla Almond Biscotti to be more exact. The Italians got that cookie right.
My mind is so full of ideas I even have to let them go sometimes. I don’t think he believes me because he keeps being concerned.
I told him to just think of recipes like faces. How can there be so many different faces with just two eyes, a nose, and a mouth? It didn’t help.
So, here I am with a new recipe. An American inspired cookie this time around – Apple Pie Cookies, and they are good! Thank goodness you can find great apples year-round.
Oh, oh. Here come the ideas. I could do a cookie that mimics everyone’s favorite pies. How about pecan pie cookies or blueberry pie cookies? Maybe I’ll do that one next.
P.S. I have lots more.
Ingredients for Apple Pie Cookies with Fresh Apples
For the Cookies:
- Coconut sugar – is the perfect sweetener for these cookies and it’s unrefined too.
- Organic vegan shortening – blends so well with the sugar that it actually whips up.
- Vanilla extract – seems to be a favorite for baked goods and there is good reason for it. Ah, that vanilla taste.
- Apple – is what apple pie cookies are all about. McIntosh, Granny Smith & Gala are great but use your favorite, peeled and chopped very fine or grated.
- Egg substitute – of your choice but I used flaxseed meal mixed with water.
- All-purpose flour – adds a lightness to the cookie dough.
- Baking powder – is the leavening agent.
- Whole wheat flour – just makes everything a bit healthier. I use whole wheat whenever I can.
- Salt – is a seasoning necessity. Even just this little bit.
For the Cinnamon/Sugar Coating:
- Coconut sugar – is the added sweet coating.
- Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Ginger – make all the flavors add up to an apple pie.
Can You Freeze Vegan Apple Pie Cookies
Why, yes, you can! Before and after baking.
- IF FREEZING:
There are two times you can freeze these cookies. - BEFORE BAKING:
- Freeze the balls of raw dough. Then, when you want to bake them, defrost and bake as instructed above.
- AFTER BAKING:
- After they have cooled you may freeze them in any of the methods How to Freeze.
- They defrost quickly so it really doesn’t take any planning. Just put them on a plate for an hour or so and take one whenever you like.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Setup and combine. Preheat your oven to 350℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine coconut sugar and shortening in a large mixing bowl.
- Cream sugar + shortening. Use a hand mixer to cream the sugar and shortening mixture together for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy. If you don’t have an electric mixer, you could use a regular whisk to vigorously mix it by hand–it will just take a bit of extra work!
- Add wet ingredients. Stir in a chia egg (or flax egg, if you prefer), vanilla extract, and grated fresh apples. Use a rubber spatula to stir the mixture until well-combined.
- Add dry ingredients. Measure your all-purpose flour, baking powder, whole wheat flour, and salt into the bowl with the wet ingredient mixture.
- Stir. Fold the wet and dry mixtures together until the dough is just blended.
- Make the coating. Combine additional coconut sugar, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and ground ginger in a small bowl.
- Roll and coat. Portion and roll the cookie dough into balls, then drop them into the cinnamon sugar mixture, tossing gently to make sure the surface of each of the cookie dough balls gets evenly coated.
- Arrange and flatten. Place the coated cookie dough balls on the prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2″ of space in between. Use your fingers to lightly flatten each dough ball.
- Bake. Transfer to the oven and bake for about 12 minutes, until lightly golden brown around the edges. The cookies will still be a little soft but they will harden as they cool.
- Cool and enjoy! Remove your vegan apple cookies to a wire rack to cool and enjoy!
Note: the photo makes them look larger than they are in reality, they are about 2″ in diameter.
Watch Us Make Apple Pie Cookies
Apple Pie Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 1 cup coconut sugar
- 1/2 cup organic vegan shortening
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup grated apple, peeled before grating. (McIntosh, Granny Smith & Gala are great options, but use your favorite!)
- 1 egg substitute (I used chia egg)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
For the Cinnamon/Sugar Coating:
- 3 Tbsp coconut sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine the coconut sugar and shortening in a large mixing bowl.
- Use a hand mixer to cream the sugar and shortening mixture together for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy. If you don’t have an electric mixer, you could use a regular whisk to vigorously mix it by hand.
- Stir in the chia egg, vanilla extract, and grated apple. Use a rubber spatula to stir the mixture until well-combined.
- Add the all-purpose flour, baking powder, whole wheat flour, and salt into the bowl with the wet ingredient mixture.
- Fold the wet and dry mixtures together until the dough is just blended.
- For the cinnamon/sugar coating: combine all of the coating ingredients (coconut sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger) in a small bowl.
- Portion and roll the cookie dough into balls, then drop them into the cinnamon sugar mixture, making sure the surface of each gets evenly coated by the mixture.
- Place the coated cookie dough balls on the prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2" of space in between. Use your fingers to lightly flatten each dough ball.
- Transfer to the oven and bake for about 12 minutes, until lightly golden brown around the edges. The cookies will still be a little soft but they will harden as they cool.
- Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool and enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
63 responses to “Apple Pie Cookies”
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Apple Pie COOKIES?!? Holy MOLY! What an awesome idea!
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I’m also always amazed by the new cookie recipes people come up with. There truly are endless possibilities. These sound wonderful!
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I love making cookies so I am always happy to find new treasures like this one.
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Oh yum…I am SO in love with these cookies! Pinned!
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Apple pie cookies sounds like a fantastic idea! Definitely need to try that soon!
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These look so good i can almost taste them! Bookmarking this recipe for fall when we go apple picking. 🙂
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I was just telling my husband the same thing! There are so many recipes! And cookbooks!! In other words, I will never run out of inspiration! Apple pie is one of my favorites, these cookies look delish!
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We have an apple tree in our yard and my girls keep asking me if we can make apple pie when the apples are ripe – we’ll have to make some apple pie cookies too!
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These look so good! My hubby LOVES apple pie, but cookies are just so much easier. I might even try to make these for Father’s Day tomorrow! I have never used vegan shortening…would Earth Balance work instead?
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It will work Jenn but won’t be quite as crispy which would also be delicious. 🙂
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I LOVE the idea of a apple pie cookies. Cookies are my favorite but I don’t make them enough. Probably because I’m scared I will just eat all the dough…haha.
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As not much of a pie lover, this is thee perfect way to enjoy apple pie! Because we all know that cookies are better than pie 😉
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You made me laugh so hard Meg! 😀
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Yum! These cookies sound amazing. Love all of those warm, cozy flavors!
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Just making sure: you would freeze the dough, right? And you would do it in balls of dough, then thaw them out and cook them as directed?
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I can’t believe I forgot to put in the freeing information. Yes, Lauren that is exactly right! Thanks for the heads up. You could also freeze them after they are baked but cookies don’t always last long enough. 🙂
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Ginny, They look so good! I love any kind of apple baking 🙂 I’ve used spectrum shortening before but mostly use Earth Balance in baking, but after reading your reply above I might need to use the shortening for some of my more tricky gluten free recipes and see if I get better results.
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Thanks Sheena! It might be worth a try. Shortening does change baking a bit. I’d love to her if it helps with the tricky gluten free recipes. i haven’t done much with the flours yet.
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Love them! Big hit with the family! I made a double batch (because you have yet to fail me with a delicious recipe) and the whole family is excited there is more in the freezer. Thank you!
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5 star comment!!! That is so fantastic Lauren! Thanks for letting me know and giving me such a glowing review. It sounds like your family really appreciates you and so do I. 🙂
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can I use butter instead of shortening.
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Yes, you can Barbara. It will be a little different in texture but will still taste great.
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You forgot the L in flour twice.
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Hahaha! Thank you and fixed it. Either me or my keyboard was having a bad day 🙂
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Can coconut oil replace shortening?
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Not really Kathy. It would make the recipe too wet. If anything I would switch to a nondairy butter such as Earth Balance.
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Can you use a real egg and not egg substitute?
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Yes, you can Joyce.
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Do these freeze? I have an abundance of apples. My kids went a little crazy at the orchard this year. I know that if we try to eat them all, we will get sick of apples. To avoid that I’m hoping to bake and freeze as many different ones as I can.
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Yes Emily! They freeze beautifully!
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I am definitely not a baker but like to make cookies a couple of times a year, so I try to keep my ingredient list pretty streamline. Are there parts of this recipe I could substitute? Specifically, could I use a vegan butter instead of shortening, skip the wheat flour with more all purpose flour, and use whatever type of sugar I have? I didn’t know if any of these ingredients really “made” the recipe what it is.
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I think all of those substitutes would work Liz. They seem to be made up of the same textures and baking qualities. If you use granulated sugar I would cut it down by about 1/4 cup.
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What egg substitute are uou talking about with this recipe. Can I use a regular egg? Thanks.
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Hi Anthony, this is a vegan site so we always use egg substitutes such as flax seed meal, chis egg or some sort of egg substitute like those. But … yes, you can use an egg just fine.
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I’ve done the egg sustitute before, but I’ve seen different ratios of chia or flax to water. What do you use for this recipe?
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I always use one tablespoon chia flour/meal or flax meal to three tablespoons water. I prefer the chia flour/meal to the seed because it’s smooth and gels almost immediately.
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My husband loves apple pie and I find cookies WAY less intimidating than pie, haha. So these sound perfect! -
OMG I needed to see this before the weekend!! What a perfect combo of sweet and healthy comfort! Can’t wait to make them! -
Perfect fall cookies! I can’t wait to try them!
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Love this idea for apple pie cookies. Like eating apple pie in a bite sized treat and apples are my favorite 🙂
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In India getting cookies made with eggs is a challenge. I personally prefer egg cookies because I grew up that way and love those cookies, however in time I started to bake without eggs just to be able to provide a good option to other folks around me. I love the way you made yours, they look scrumptious! -
If I wanted to make these non-vegan, would the shortening, coconut sugar, and egg substitute all be a 1:1 for butter, sugar, and egg?
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It would be about the same but would taste a little sweeter with the sugar and may puff up a little more with the egg. Remember, I haven’t used those ingredients so I can’t be sure of the outcome.
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Shall i use coconuts oil instead of shortening?
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That won’t work in this case Nada as it needs to be whipped with the sugar and liquid oil wouldn’t do that.
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Just make them. You won’t regret it. They are fantastic!! I used GFAP flour and they still came out great-
Thank you Renada!!!
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I don’t know what I did wrong … the dough was soft and wet and sticky, impossible to form into balls, even after adding more flour.
I used vegan butter instead of shortening and used a real egg (I am just dairy free, not vegan).
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You’re always taking a chance when substituting ingredients in baking. Baking is so precise. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. Sometimes you can substitute butter for shortening and sometimes you can’t. Evidently, you can’t in this recipe. It’s like a 50/50 chance. Also, if you melt dairy-free butter in a pan you’ll see all of the ‘water’ that comes out of it. It’s just different. If the egg was larger than the measurement for the egg substitute that would have made a difference too.
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Hi Ginny. Great recipe. Baked them yesterday and I had to put some real effort into not munching through the whole batch in one afternoon. I wanted to share a thought. I was using brown sugar (3/4 of a cup, from where I took the 2 tbsps for the mixture) and I also happend to have a surplus of Red Delicious apples. My egg replacer was applesauce. As you can imagine they were rather sweet in the end. I know they are suppossed to, but do keep that in mind if you replace ingredients or if you use very sweet apples, because it might be worth it lowering the amount of sugar. Sorry, that was rather long! Cheers.
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Yes, brown sugar would make them much sweeter than coconut sugar Victoria. I think the red delicious apples and applesauce would have been fine for the sweetness but not the brown sugar. Things absolutely do change when the ingredients get swapped.
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What can I use as an egg subsitute? Would the vinegar and baking soda trick work? I have used it in caked before but never in cookies. Thank you. The recipe looks great, I would like to make then for my vegan grandson.
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That is so nice Nancy! Applesauce would work for these. 3 tablespoons should do it. Or you can use flaxseed meal – 1 tablespoon mixed with 3 tablespoons water.
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These were so good! So soft and chewy!-
That is wonderful Mariah!
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I made these with margarine instead of shortening , I used cooking apples from my neighbours tree and for the egg substitute I roughly crushed 1 and a half tablespoons of flax seeds and mixed them rapidly with 2 tablespoons of boiling water until they became gloopy. I didn’t follow the measurements exactly but I added more flour until it was like a thick but very sticky cake batter mix , I wetted my hands as I rolled the balls – this stops the mix sticking everywhere! They are so yummy – straight out the oven 🙂-
Ha! That’s great Mirabelle and thank you. Since you didn’t follow the directions I’m glad you added enough flour and thought up enough things so that they turned out. I love these apple pie cookies too.
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Can I just use regular ap flour and granulated sugar?
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Yes, you can Linda but maybe take out 1 tablespoon of the sugar because it is so much sweeter.
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Can we use applesauce as an egg sub?
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Yes Mark! That will work perfectly.
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What can be used as an egg substitute? Applesauce?
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Yes, you can use applesauce Ginny OR 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal mixed with 3 tablespoons of water OR 1 tablespoon chia seed mixed with 3 tablespoons water.
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