Applesauce Cookies

The first section of the Cooky Book focuses on drop cookies- cookies that involve mixing up the dough and then dropping spoonfuls of dough onto the pan in little mounds. According to Betty Crocker, the perfect drop cookies have "fairly uniform mound shape, delicately browned exteriors, and good flavor." Let's see how these turn out! 
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Applesauce Cookies
1 cup shortening
2 cups brown sugar (packed)
2 eggs
1/2 cup cold coffee
2 cups well-drained thick applesauce
3 1/2 cups Gold Medal Flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp EACH cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts

Blend together the shortening, sugar, and eggs; stir in the coffee and applesauce. In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the applesauce mixture. Chill dough for at least 2 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 400̊ F. Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of dough onto a lightly greased baking sheet spaced about 2 inches apart. Bake for 9 to 12 minutes or until almost no imprint remains on the cookies when lightly pressed. Optionally, frost when cool with Lemon Butter Icing. Makes 7 to 8 dozen cookies.

Lemon Butter Icing

2 1/2 Tbsp soft butter

1 1/2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp grated lemon rind

Blend the butter and sugar together. Stir in the lemon juice and grated lemon rind. Mix until smooth. Makes enough icing for 4 dozen cookies.
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I followed this recipe pretty closely. I used walnuts for the chopped nuts (I added the nuts to the dough after I baked a pan without nuts for the people that have walnut allergies) and Mott's Natural No Sugar Added applesauce. I did not, however, used Gold Medal flour. :)

Ingredients, ready to become cookies!

The dough was very soupy, even after chilling for two hours. I made a couple of pans after the two hour chill period and then stored the dough in the fridge another 24 hours, and the dough was still so soft that it was hard to work with. The dough could possibly have been improved by adding a little bit of extra flour.

A pan ready for the oven

I baked the cookies on ungreased cookie sheets and baked each pan for 9 minutes. They were very cakey cookies and were really, really moist. I thought that the nuts were not very noticeable and that more raisins would have been good.

Action shot!

While the cookies cooled, I made the Lemon Butter Icing. I didn't have a lemon to get any lemon zest, so I just left that out. I always think of icing as more of a glaze than a frosting, but this came out extremely thick. I ended up adding a couple of tablespoons of milk to thin it out a little. I thought it added a little sweetness to the cookies, but not much in the way of lemon flavor. I would take these cookies with or without the icing.

My cookie tasters (both at Arts and Cats night and Nerd Night) responded pretty favorably to these cookies. They did have a nice cinnamon spice flavor and were pleasantly cakey and moist, but overall, they were not my favorite cookie.  I guess they just lacked a wow factor.  

Don't forget to check back soon for my next recipe- Orange Drop Cookies!
Carly

Credit where credit is due:
This cookie recipe was found on page 7 of Betty Crocker's Cooky Book; the icing recipe was found on page 150.
My copy of the Cooky Book was a gift from my amazing husband, Ryan.
My sweet Carly apron was a hand made gift from Ryan's cousin Maggie.
Bridget and Jay gave me the penguin spatula, seen in my cookie-moving action shot.