Maple Cookies
Ok, so I may have totally failed my sister’s Apple Day, but we definitely did a nice feature of maple between the maple-mustard pork and the maple cookies. Yup, we used a lot of maple syrup for that meal and it was oh, so good. I already told you how good the pork was, but the cookies…. Buttery and sugary and most important, one of the best flavors on earth: maple! What’s not to love? The only downside to these cookies is that recipe calls for a whole cup of maple syrup, but luckily, we had a bunch of maple syrup on hand (emphasis on had).
My grandparents lived in Burlington, VT so we went often and no trip was complete without getting maple sugar. While I still love the flavor of maple, I find that maple sugar is sometimes just a little too much for me. I mean, I do love the way it just dissolves on your tongue, but it’s just so sweet that I can’t eat very much of it. I will never, ever lose my love of the maple flavor though. Hence the cookies. I mean, it just seemed a shame to make an entree featuring a spicy maple profile without then finishing the meal with sweet maple. Right?
These may not exactly be the healthiest of cookies. I mean, you cream the butter with a cup of brown sugar, then you add maple syrup, and then, as if that wasn’t enough sugar, you roll them in more sugar before baking. I mean, sure, you could skip that step, but at this point, why bother? And besides, I’ll have you know that maple contains calcium, zinc, antioxidants, riboflavin and niacin, thank you very much. Totally healthy. And while they’re sweet, they’re not cloyingly so like so many maple cookies. The finished product is a soft, rich, buttery cookie with real maple that made me feel like I was in Vermont again.
Maple Cookies
Recipe adapted from Allrecipes – Craig Gund
Ok, so for the purpose of full disclosure, I will say that while they’re super yummy, they’re maybe not quite as maple-y as I wish they were. I guess that with a whole cup of maple syrup, I was expecting an explosion of maple and it’s actually a more subtle flavor. I think to heighten the maple even more you could use maple extract in place of the vanilla. If you prefer some crunch to your cookie, you could add some toasted, chopped walnut.
Servings: 60
1 cup butter at room temp
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup real maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar for rolling
Preheat oven to 350. Grease cookie sheets.
With an electric mixer cream the butter and brown sugar (about 8 minutes). Add the egg, syrup and vanilla. Mix until well blended.
Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda. Stir into the butter/flour mixture until well blended. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour or two. Shape into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar. Place on cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Let all the cookies you don’t eat straight out of the oven cool on wire rack.
