Every year, I always make at least one new apple cider dessert recipe. I always loved apple cider as a kid but now as an adult, I love it even more. This year, I decided to make a different kind of apple cider cookie, making it the complimentary flavor instead of the main. These oatmeal sandwich cookies with apple cider caramel cream are chewy, sweet, and very addicting. I think you'll fall in love with them (or at least I hope you do!)
Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies with Apple Cider Caramel Cream
Ingredients
Oatmeal cookies
- 1 cup rolled oats (80 grams)
- ½ cup softened butter (113 grams)
- 1 cup brown sugar (200 grams)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour (148 grams)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
Apple cider caramel cream filling
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- ¼ cup softened butter (57 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar (130 grams)
- 3 tablespoons apple cider caramel
Instructions
- Pulse rolled oats until coarsely ground.
- Cream butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Add egg, molasses, and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
- Add flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and baking powder, stirring just until combined. Stir in pulsed oats, mixing just until combined. Chill cookie dough for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Scoop 1 tablespoon dough per cookie on baking sheet, leaving 2 inches space in between for a total of 30 cookies. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until golden brown but still slightly gooey in the center. Remove from oven and let cool completely on baking sheet.
- Meanwhile, making apple cider caramel cream filling. Cream together cream cheese and butter until well combined. Add vanilla, powdered sugar, and apple cider caramel, mixing until well combined. Transfer filling into a piping bag.
- Flip half of the cookies over and pipe filling on top. Stack with remaining cookies and sandwich together. Serve.
**Helpful tips and common mistakes
I had my mind set on a sandwich cookie but I wasn't sure how to approach it. All I knew was that I wanted it to be firmer than a whoopie pie but still with a cream filling. It wasn't until I started working with oats for another recipe that it dawned on me. Oatmeal sandwich cookies with apple cider caramel cream! It sounded like the perfect pairing and so it was time to get to work.
Let's start with the actual cookies. I wanted the oats to help create firmer cookies but I didn't want them to overshadow the other ingredients. The solution? Pulse the oats into smaller bits. You want the oats just to be broken up but not ground into a powder.
Set the oats aside and start creaming together the butter and sugar. We're using brown sugar instead of white to get a chewier cookie. Brown sugar also has a deep caramel flavor that will help enhance the flavor of the cookies.
Add the egg, molasses, and vanilla extract, and mix until well combined.
Then, add the dry ingredients including the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, and baking powder. Stir the batter just until the flour is incorporated into the dough.
Fold in the pulsed oats and chill the cookie dough for 30 minutes. The cookies will spread quite a bit in the oven so prevent them from spreading too much, we're going to chill the dough first.
Scoop 1 tablespoon portions of the cookie dough and place them on a lined baking sheet. Give the cookies plenty of space in between, about 2 inches. Then, bake the oatmeal cookies for 7-9 minutes or until golden brown. Do not overbake the cookies! They will continue to cook on the hot baking sheet so it's better to slightly underbake them.
While the cookies are cooling, make the apple cider caramel cream filling. If you need the recipe to make apple cider caramel, you can find it in my cinnamon sugar donut hole recipe. Feel free to make the caramel 3 days in advance.
Beat together softened cream cheese with butter until well combined. Then, add the vanilla, powdered sugar, and apple cider caramel, mixing until well combined. If you want to skip the apple cider caramel you can use regular caramel. However, I love the little bit of tang from the apple cider which helps offset the sweetness of the cookies.
Spread the cream filling on half of the cookies and top them with the other half.
These oatmeal sandwich cookies with apple cider caramel cream are on the sweeter side but I'm not complaining! The chewy cookies are the perfect vessel for the creamy, sweet filling and the hint of apple cider puts them over the edge. Enjoy them with a glass of milk for a great afternoon treat!
For more apple dessert inspiration check out these apple pretzel pie bars!
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