Baking Weather

You guys, it's cold outside.  That should be obvious, considering it's December, but since we ended up having a couple of lovely 70 degree days last week, this winter chill seems a little harsher than usual.  This weather, however, does have its advantages.  It has put me in the mood to bake.  A LOT.  I've been trying out quite a few of the recipes I've pinned on Pinterest (you can follow me on there if you want!), that have included some clean eating super chocolate-y muffins, some homemade graham crackers, and most recently, some pumpkin cream cheese muffins (little note, if you try this one, use sugar or splenda in the amounts listed, not stevia, or change your measurements.  That's WAY too much stevia for one batch of muffins!).

All of this baked deliciousness has been keeping my kitchen busy and warm, but there's one recipe that started this trend.  It was a recipe for a little something called Apple Snickerdoodle Cobbler.  Yep.  Apples and Snickerdoodles got to have a hot date in the oven to create a little dish of yummy.  This was too good not to share.  I made a few tweaks to the original recipe that I'll share with you guys as well.

First up, and most importantly, I made myself a big cup of peppermint hot chocolate to accompany my baking escapade.  The ingredients?  Great Value hot chocolate mix, and two spoonfuls of powdered starlight mints.  That's it.  Seriously the best thing ever, but now I'm off on a chocolate-y tangent.

Then, I dove in to the recipe (ingredients written in blue were the ones I added):

Cookie ingredients:
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2/3C flour
1/4C unsalted butter, softened
1/3C sugar, plus 1/2C
1 egg
3/4 tsp cinnamon

Apple ingredients:
8C apples (roughly 6-8 apples depending on their size)
1/4C brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4C butter

1/4C gingerale

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl combine first four dry ingredients for the cookie dough. In a separate bowl or stand mixer, cream butter and 1/3 cup sugar. Add egg followed by premixed dry ingredients. Mix until dry ingredients are blended into the dough well. Set aside.

In a small bowl combine 3/4 teaspoon and 1/2 cup sugar. Set aside.

Now, the original recipe calls for you to peel, core, and slice the apples, then toss them in a mix of 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a large bowl until coated.   

Instead, I placed the apples in an 8×8 baking dish, and melted the butter on the stove in a small saucepan.  Once the butter was melted, I stirred in the brown sugar and cinnamon, and then poured the sugary melted mixture over the apples.  Then, I poured the 1/4C of gingerale over the top of that.

Form 1 inch balls of dough and roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place coated dough balls on top of apples, press down lightly to slightly flatten.

Bake for 45-55 minutes or until apples are tender and cookie topping is lightly golden.

Allow to cool slightly prior to serving. Serve with optional whipped cream or ice cream. May be stored chilled for several days.

When it goes into the oven, it kinda looks like chicken nuggets on top of apples, like this:

When it comes out and is half-eaten, because my family and I were too impatient not to dig in immediately, it looks like this:

I really enjoyed eating (and making!) this.  The added moisture from the butter and ginger-ale did make the top crust a little more cake-y than cookie-y, but all the crumbly cinnamon sugary-ness was definitely a lot of yummy.

On my recently created scale of recipes and their success, I'm going to give this one 3 out of 4 sporks.

So, what's your favorite thing to bake when the weather turns cold?