Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
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Whip up a batch or 2 of these dream-worthy Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies! These soft cookies literally melt-in-your mouth! If you love maple syrup based goodies and the old-fashioned Amish drop cookie vibe with a modern twist, then you’ll love this recipe whole-heartedly, especially fall season.
More fall favorites we love are these Easy Applesauce Bars, these Chocolate Maple Cream Truffles, this Maple Apple Pecan Bread and these Ultimate Soft Caramel Apple Drop Cookies!
What are Soft Maple Brown Sugar Drop Cookies?
These heavenly Soft Maple Brown Sugar Drop Cookies are so soft, thick and amazing, perfected with warm ingredients like maple syrup, brown sugar, applesauce and cinnamon (yum!) inside.
Then the tops of the cookies are dipped and dripping in a super easy, buttery maple syrup icing! These are definitely buttery and maple-icious good! A good old-fashioned cookie like you would get at grandma’s or the fall season when maple syrup is super popular!
Why I LOVE This Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies Recipe
- The best part, besides eating them of course, is how easy they are to make. Perfect for a bake sale, holidays and fall baking!
- No rolling the cookie dough.
- These are cakey drop cookies, so no cookie cutters not needed.
- No need to chill the dough.
- No weird ingredients — The ingredients used are pretty much always on hand in your pantry, which is always a good thing, right?
- For a vegan cookie option, use non-dairy butter!
- No eggs are needed! The applesauce is the egg substitute!
Is This Soft Maple Cookie Recipe Vegan?
It can be! However, you must use a vegan butter to make these vegan official! There are plenty of choices out there you can use, that taste just like butter! I’ve not noticed the difference at all.
I get asked a lot to make vegan or eggless desserts, and so I came up with this delicious maple cookie recipe that is amazing! I prefer to use applesauce, but if you’re looking for more choices, The Spruce has a great article with a chart to use, whether you have a dairy allergy or the need or desire to cut saturated fat.
My son is vegan and his girlfriend eats a lot of vegan food and it seems the vegan diet is becoming more and more mainstream, with people cutting out animal products for environmental, ethical and health reasons.
But whether you eat eggs or don’t, you won’t even miss the eggs in this Maple Brown Sugar Cookies Recipe. The applesauce does the job, so the cookies are super moist and soft!
Ingredients You Need
Softest Brown Sugar Maple Cookies Recipe
- unsalted butter, room temperature or dairy-free butter option
- light brown sugar or dark brown sugar
- pure maple syrup
- vanilla extract
- unsweetened applesauce
- baking powder
- all purpose flour
- ground cinnamon
- salt
Buttery Maple Glaze
- unsalted butter or dairy-free butter option
- pure maple syrup
- confectioners’ sugar
- salt
Instructions How to Make Soft Maple Brown Cookies
Softest Maple Cookies recipe
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder and set aside.
- Using mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together for 2 minutes, then add maple syrup until mixed well.
- Add in applesauce, vanilla extract and beat for an additional minute. Add in flour mixture and mix to incorporate. You should have a very soft dough.
- Using a 1 ½ tablespoon or medium cookie scoop to scoop cookies onto prepared cookie sheets.
- Bake cookies for 12 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to sit on the baking sheet, untouched, for 10 minutes.
Buttery Maple Icing
- Using microwave, melt the butter and maple syrup together for 1 ½ – 2 minutes.
- Once the butter has melted, remove from microwave and whisk in the sifted confectioners’ sugar and salt.
- Set glaze aside and allow to cool and thicken while cookies cool. If icing is too thick, heat up in microwave 15-30 second increments to get icing consistency needed.
- Dip each cookie into the maple icing by dipping the tops in, then place dipped cookies on wire rack or parchment paper to set.
Tips for the Best Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
- It’s nice to use a medium-sized scoop to get nice looking cookies. One batch makes 14 cookies and these cookies spread, but not much and they are about a 1/2 inch thick to 3/4 inch thick in the middle.
- Let cookies rest and set on cookie pan after pulling from oven. My perfect oven time is 12 minutes.
- Use parchment paper if you can, parchment is my best friend in the kitchen, when baking. If not, lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray or use a silpat.
- These cookies without the icing are not heavily sweetened, so, if you were wanting to omit the icing for whatever reason, feel free to add in a little maple extract or use sweetened applesauce for a little more sugar.
- I use the unsweetened applesauce that is packaged as a six-pack and each one measures 1/2 cups, which means easy measuring. Yassireeee!
- But, if you’re all in for a really good cookie, add the buttery maple glaze. These cookies are best when they are completely cooled with icing set. Milk on the side, please.
More Variations
- For texture add some pecans or walnuts for a nutty vibe.
- Add some white chocolate chips to your cookie dough for a yummy twist.
- Instead of maple frosting, sprinkle the tops with powdered sugar.
Storing Soft Maple Cookies
- Store baked maple drop cookies in an airtight container at room temperature, layering them with parchment paper to prevent sticking.
- For soft cookies, add a slice of white bread to an airtight container to maintain moisture.
- For longer storage, freeze the cookies in a freezer-safe bag or airtight container, separated by parchment paper, for up to three months.
This soft maple brown sugar drop cookie recipe is perfect for Fall and when you’re craving maple syrup flavor! They smell amazing!!
Check out this Chunky Apple Walnut Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting too! We are loving the maple!
If You Love Soft Cookies
- Soft Lemon & Blueberry Explosion Cookies
- Valentine Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Icing
- Ultimate Soft Chocolate Drop Cookies
- Sprinkle Sugar Cookies
- Best Soft Sour Cream Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
- 7 Pumpkin Cookie Recipes for Pumpkin Cookie Lovers!
- Super Soft Lemon Glazed Sugar Cookies
- Soft Almond Cookies with Almond Buttercream
Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Soft Batch Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
- ½ cup butter room temperature or dairy-free butter option
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- ⅓ cup pure maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup applesauce
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 & 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp salt
Buttery Maple Glaze - Will cover 2 batches of cookies if you do a double batch.
- ¼ cup unsalted butter or dairy-free butter option
- ½ cup pure maple syrup
- 1 ¼ cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Softest Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder and set aside.
- Using mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together for 2 minutes, then add maple syrup until mixed well.
- Add in applesauce, vanilla extract and beat for an additional minute. Add in flour mixture and mix to incorporate. You should have a very soft dough.
- Using a 1 ½ tablespoon or medium cookie scoop to scoop cookies onto prepared cookie sheets.
- Bake cookies for 12 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to sit on the baking sheet, untouched, for 10 minutes.
Buttery Maple Icing
- Using microwave, melt the butter and maple syrup together for 1 ½ - 2 minutes. Once the butter has melted, remove from microwave and whisk in the sifted confectioners’ sugar and salt. Set glaze aside and allow to cool and thicken while cookies cool. If icing is too thick, heat up in microwave 15-30 second increments to get icing consistency needed.
- Dip each cookie into the maple icing by dipping the tops in, then place dipped cookies on wire rack or parchment paper to set.
Nutrition
