Apple Crisp Cookies with a pie crust bottom, sweetened spiced apples and brown sugar oat topping. Mini apple crumbles perfect for sharing!
This adorable Cookie Recipe combines the best parts of Apple Pie and our Ultimate Apple Crisp into a portable, mini Apple Crisp Pie. Perfect for a holiday cookie tray or a cute gift for neighbors and friends.
Apple Crisp Cookies combine the two most comforting fall apple desserts, Apple Crisp and Classic Apple Pie, in one delicious handheld treat. The best part is? Only a small amount of apples, because everyone knows the best part of a crisp and a pie are the delicious, buttery, crispy shells!
You may have seen some adorable Pinterest photos of Apple Pie Cookies, with the cute crust and everything. They look beautiful, and also like a lot of work. The best part about this recipe is that the topping is as equally easy as it is cute. You don’t have to worry about the cookies looking delicious, the crumble will take care of that for you and the bottoms brown nicely because of the pie crust. The inside is still delicious, chewy, moist and still has a hint of liquid filling.
While the recipe calls for the classic Granny Smith apples, you can use your favorite baking apples. This recipe is especially fun to make in the fall if you’ve been apple picking with the kids. Kids can help with cutting out the pie crusts with a cookie cutter, stirring up the apple mixture, and sprinkling the oat topping on the cookies before baking.
These Apple Crisp Cookies will be right at home on a holiday cookie platter along with our Award Winning Gingerbread Cookies, Crinkly Brownie Cookies, and Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies.
How to Make Apple Crisp Cookies
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare a muffin tin with baking spray (you’ll use it twice or spray two muffin tins).
- Cut 24 two inch circles out of your pie crust. If you need to, gather your scraps and re-roll them to ¼ inch thickness. Add the pie crust to the muffin tins.
- In a small saucepan add the apples, sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice and cornstarch. Cook for 5-7 minutes until the apples are softened and thickened.
- To make the crisp topping, add the flour, ½ cup sugar, ½ cup brown sugar, salt, oats and butter to a bowl and combine with either a hand mixer or pastry cutter.
- Add one tablespoon of apple filling to each muffin well, then add two tablespoons of the crumble topping on top.
- Optionally, give the tops a quick spray with canola oil to help hold the topping together.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes. Let cool completely before carefully removing.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Granny Smith apples are typically used for baking recipes, because their tartness is a good balance for the cinnamon and sugar you’ll add. You can also use other apple varieties like Braeburn, Honeycrisp, or Pink Lady, or a combination for a variety of flavors and textures.
Absolutely! Use a store-bought pie crust to make this Apple Crisp Cookie recipe even easier. Most frozen pie crust comes in a double package, and you only need one crust for this recipe, so keep the other frozen to use another time.
In addition to cinnamon, try adding a touch of other warm spices like ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, and star anise. Or try using this easy Pumpkin Pie Spice or your favorite store bought blend. Try adding extra cinnamon to the oat topping for more spiced flavor, or grate whole nutmeg on top for a beautiful and fragrant finish.
Always use old-fashioned oats when baking. These are also called rolled oats because they are processed by being rolled flat so that they cook in about 10 minutes. Instant oats are rolled and also steamed so they can be cooked in about 1 minute, but this makes them not ideal for baking as they will become mushy instead of crispy on your topping. You need the firmness of the rolled oats to stand up to the baking, the others will disappear into the topping when baked and become mushy.
When giving cookies as a gift, you want to bake them as fresh as possible before wrapping and gifting (see the tips below on preparing the dough in advance). Make sure they are cooled completely, and package them in tissue paper to keep them from cracking. For cookies that can be sticky like these Apple Crisp Cookies, you may want to separate layers of the cookies with parchment paper. If your gift box or tin is not air tight, wrap the entire box in a clear plastic bag and tie with a decorative ribbon. Then your gift wrap also serves to help keep the cookies fresh!
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Key Ingredients in Apple Crisp Cookies
- Pie Crust: Make an easy Homemade Pie Crust or just use a store bought frozen crust and thaw according to the package instructions. The crust on the bottom layer of these cookies makes them look and taste like mini apple pies with a crispy oat topping.
- Apple Filling: Look for medium apples that don’t have any bruises or wrinkling on the skin. When you simmer the peeled and diced apples with sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice, and cornstarch, the juices from the apples will combine with the other ingredients to make a delicious sticky apple pie filling for your mini crisp cookies.
- Crisp Topping: The crunchy streusel topping is made with flour, white sugar, brown sugar, salt, oats and butter. Make sure to use old-fashioned rolled oats and not instant oats whenever you are baking.
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Variations on Apple Crisp Cookies
- Crumble Topping: If you’re not a fat of old-fashioned oats, you can leave them out and use this same apple cookie recipe to make apple crumble cookies.
- Caramel: Turn these into Caramel Apple Cookies by drizzling them withSalted Caramel Sauce. You can also add chopped caramel candies or caramel baking chips to the homemade apple filling.
- Chocolate: Stir mini chocolate chips into the apple mixture or drizzle with Chocolate Ganache after they’ve cooled.
- Peanut Butter: Apples and peanut butter are an amazing combination not just for kids. Stir some peanut butter baking chips into the apple filling, or soften peanut butter by warming it in the microwave in 10 second increments and drizzle on top.
- Fruit: Substitute some of the apple for other fresh fruits like diced pear, peaches, or berries for a delicious fruity cookie crisp. You can also mix in dried fruit like cranberries, dates, or raisins.
- Nuts: Add chopped pecans, almonds, walnuts, or peanuts to the crisp topping for an extra nutty crunch.
How to Store Apple Crisp Cookies
- Serve: Apple Crisp Cookies can be enjoyed after cooling and removing from muffin tin.
- Store: In an airtight container, Apple Crisp Cookies will keep at room temperature up to 3 days and in the refrigerator up to 1 week.
- Freeze: Freeze cookies in a sealed plastic freezer bag, separated by parchment paper so they don’t stick, for up to 3 months. Defrost at room temperature.
Ingredients
- 1 Pie Crust , (you can make half that recipe)
- 5 Granny Smith apples , peeled and diced
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar , packed
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2/3 cup rolled oats , (not instant)
- 10 tablespoons cold unsalted butter , diced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Add baking spray or grease regular muffin tin (you’ll use it twice or spray two muffin tins).
- Cut 24 two inch circles out of your pie crust.
- If you need to, gather your scraps and re-roll them to ¼ inch thickness.
- Add the pie crust to the muffin tins.
- In a small saucepan add the apples, sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice and cornstarch.
- Cook for 5-7 minutesuntil the apples are softened and thickened.
- To make the crisp topping, add the flour, ½ cup sugar, ½ cup brown sugar, salt, oats and butter to a bowl and combine with either a hand mixer or pastry cutter.
- Add one tablespoon of apple filling to each muffin well.
- Add two tablespoons of the crumble topping on top.
- I give the tops a quick spray with canola oil, but it is totally up to you. I find it helps hold the topping together.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes.
- Let cool completely before carefully removing.
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Oh my God I just made these and they are delicious. Great recipe. I will definitely make it again.
Absolutely delicious? Next time I will use my smaller pan that has 24 little cups that will make them more like a cookie to me. Otherwise, the cupcake size would be great for party.
Good to know and thank you Judy for the 5 star rating!
Would you recommend baking your piecrust first?
Hi Barbara,
I didn’t bake the little pie crusts first and they turned out great! Let us know what you decided to do!
Looks a lovely recipe, I’m unsure about butter measured out in tablespoons. How much does that weigh? I am from UK
Do you squash the butter into a tablespoon and flatten the top, or take a guess at the amount, chop it up then put it in the tablespoon, then squash the leftover butter back into the butter pack??
Hi Gerri,
At the top of the recipe card there is a button that says Metric that will automatically show all ingredients in metric measurements.
Hope that helps.
One of the best best desserts I’ve ever made. And I make a lot.
Can you freeze these?
Freeze: Freeze cookies in a sealed plastic freezer bag, separated by parchment paper so they don’t stick, for up to 3 months. Defrost at room temperature.
I am a beginner at baking. To make the circle pie crust cut outs. Where did you find the cookie cutter? Sorry if this a stupid question but I haven’t been able to find one. Thank you.
Hi Heidi,
Here’s an Amazon link for round cookie cutters!
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=round+cookie+cutter&crid=2JPV53ZT9IQ3Q&sprefix=round+cookie+cutter%2Caps%2C159&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
Hope you find it helpful and enjoy the recipe!
Made this and it’s delicious!! Easy step by step and very rewarding!
Thank you!
could this be made into a slab cookie in a half size sheet pan?
Autumn, what a great idea. Try it and let me know how it turns out!
Could these cookies be made with sugar cookie or shortbread bases, instead of pie crust?
I’ve made them previously with the shortbread cookie recipe on the site and they were delicious. I haven’t tested with sugar cookie dough.
It was so delicious that 24 cookies were not enough. Very tender, flavourful and easy make. I will definitely make this again