Our Favorite Fall Cookie Recipes
Whether you make them for an afternoon snack or a weekend tailgating party, these 20-plus cookie recipes will bring autumn's scents and flavors into your home.
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Caramel Apple Cookies
Chopped apple, pecans, apple juice, apple pie spice and more combine for a hearty, delicious cookie. The frosting and nuts add just the right touch of sweetness and crunch on top.
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CCCC Cookies
In the Middle East, cardamom often flavors coffee. Here, that duo teams up with cloves and chocolate shards in a bakehouse-style cookie with cozy chai vibes. (Trust us: The extra step of melting chocolate, spreading it out and breaking it into shards, rather than use chips, is worth it for a totally elevated cookie.)
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Miss Rosa Lee's Oatmeal Cookies
Nothing fancy here; this is the perfectly chewy lunchbox classic, pebbled with walnuts and plump raisins. A combination of vegetable oil and butter ensures a chewy texture and rich flavor. This recipe comes from Patty Pinner's cookbook Sweets (crownpublishing.com).
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Anita's Cranberry Scones
Coarsely chopped cranberries spread the sweet-tart flavor throughout this tender scone, a winner at the Warrens Cranberry Festival recipe competition. A sweet almond frosting complements the berries.
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Rene's Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies
Coconut adds chewiness to this full-of-chips cookie. The recipe is from Rene's Bakery in Indianapolis, one of the most popular Indy bakeries.
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Gingersnap Gems
The recipe for these sweet and spicy cookies comes from the Warren family in Stanley, Kansas. The gingersnaps are a favorite at family gatherings.
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Chocolate-Cranberry Biscotti
Whether your brew is coffee or tea or just a glass of milk, take a break with a tempting homemade biscotti.Â
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Peanut Butter Apple Cookies
Looking for a healthier cookie? Shredded apple, whole wheat flour, canola oil and wheat germ reduce saturated fat and add whole grains and flavor to peanut butter cookies.
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Cranberry Candy-Bar Cookies
These gooey bar cookies start with a German chocolate cake mix. Melted caramels and cranberry sauce form a moist middle layer.
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Avalon's Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies
Avalon International Breads in Detroit sells these drop cookies.
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Peanut Butter Munchies
A Hanover, Kansas, reader sent the recipe for these chocolate cookies with peanut butter centers to a Midwest Living® cookie contest. A judge described them as "regally rich chocolate with a peanut butter kick."
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Hunka Chocolate Cookies
This recipe will satisfy chocolate lovers' cravings, with semisweet chocolate pieces, unsweetened chocolate, melted white chocolate and melted semisweet chocolate. Just a half a cup of flour goes into this fudgy delight.
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Crisp Cherry-Almond Bars with Marshmallows
Dried fruit and crunchy almonds bring antioxidants and omega-3s to these bars made from two kinds of rice cereal--regular and chocolate flavored--in our version of marshmallow-cereal bars.
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Sour Cream Pumpkin Bars
OK, so they're not exactly a cookie, but these pumpkin bars are some of our favorite fall treats. A little whole wheat flour adds fiber and nutrients.Â
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Fat Molasses Cookies
Packed with flavor from molasses, ginger, cinnamon and brown sugar, these cookies look especially nice when cut with a scalloped or round cutter and sprinkled with coarse sugar or crystallized ginger.
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Spiced Apple Drops
An apple a day tastes even better in cookie form, especially with frosting on top!
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Quadruple Ginger Cookies
To make ginger juice, Patty Erd of the Spice House in Evanston, Illinois, squishes coarsely chopped fresh ginger in a clean garlic press.
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Snickerdoodles
Cinnamon and sugar coat these traditional crackled-top cookies. For a pumpkin-flavored version, try Pumpkin Doodle Doo Cookies.
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Dream Jumbles
Chocolate, raisins, pecans, almonds, brown sugar—-this recipe has it all, in an easy drop cookie. They are a dream to eat as well as to make.
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Chocolate Lovers' Oatmeal Delight
Crisp on the outside and fudgy on the inside, these treats are easy drop cookies that feature semisweet chocolate pieces as well as peanut butter flavored pieces. Unsweetened cocoa powder punches up the chocolate flavor.