Christmas Recipe: Spiced Apple and Walnut Cookies

Christmas is the time to bake cookies, either sweet or spiced.

Warm, chewy and delicious, they go well with your evening tea or coffee and Christmas carols.

Pack them up attractively as edible and environmentally-friendly gifts for family and friends.

Chef Sabyasachi Gorai's Spiced Apple and Walnut Cookies truly go with the season's theme.

Turn out a batch on the weekend and get your kids or partner to decorate them.

Count on Chef Sabya, given his interest in innovation, to have a recipe for every season and every holiday.

Spiced Apple and Walnut Cookies

Servings: 20

Ingredients

• 100 gm butter, softened
• 125 gm castor sugar (a kind of finer sugar manufactured by top baking brands)
• 1 medium egg, beaten
• 1 small red apple, peeled, cored and finely diced
• 50 gm dried cranberries, available in health food stores and for purchase online
• 50 gm walnuts, chopped
• 300 gm maida or all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp mixed spice or pumpkin pie spice (available for purchase online)

Method 

• Preheat an oven to 180°C.
• Line a large baking tray with parchment paper.
• Cream the butter and the sugar together.
  Add the egg and stir in the diced apple, cranberries, walnuts.
  Stir in the flour, the mixed spice/pumpkin pie spice and mix and then knead until you get a stiff dough.
  Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
  Divide the dough into 20 balls.
  Flatten the balls slightly, place them, an inch apart, on the baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and crusty.
  Cool for 5-10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
  Serve with milk or chai.
  Or transfer to an air-tight container and preserve for a few weeks.

Editor's Note: For vegan cookies substitute the egg with 1 tbsp chia seeds + 3 tbsp water and replace the butter with cashew butter.

You might consider replacing the maida with whole wheat flour for slightly healthier cookies.

Chef Sabyasachi Gorai is a consultant chef and mentor.

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