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!

Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies recipe

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!

Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies

Why I LOVE These Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies!

  • The best part, besides eating them of course, is how easy they are to make.
  • No rolling the cookie dough.
  • These are 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!

Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies recipe

Is This 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!

Soft Maple Cookies recipe brown sugar

Ingredients You Need 

Softest Maple Brown Sugar Cookies Recipe

Buttery Maple Glaze 

  • unsalted butter or dairy-free butter option
  • pure maple syrup
  • confectioners’ sugar
  • salt

How to Make Soft Maple Brown Cookies

Softest Maple Brown Sugar Cookies

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder and set aside.
  3. Using mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together for 2 minutes, then add maple syrup until mixed well.
  4. 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.
  5. Using a 1 ½ tablespoon or medium cookie scoop to scoop cookies onto prepared cookie sheets.
  6. 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

  1. Using microwave, melt the butter and maple syrup together for 1 ½ – 2 minutes.
  2. Once the butter has melted, remove from microwave and whisk in the sifted confectioners’ sugar and salt.
  3. 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.
  4. Dip each cookie into the maple icing by dipping the tops in, then place dipped cookies on wire rack or parchment paper to set.

Soft Maple Cookies recipe brown sugar

Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies

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.

Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies recipe

Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies

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 Maple Brown Sugar Cookies

Soft Maple Brown Sugar Cookies

Kim Lange
These heavenly Soft Maple Brown Sugar Drop Cookies are so soft, thick and amazing to bite into and they're perfected with warm ingredients like maple syrup, brown sugar, applesauce and cinnamon (yum!) inside and then the tops of the cookies are dipped and dripping in a super easy, buttery maple syrup icing! 
4.60 from 25 votes
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 12 minutes
Course Dessert, Snack
Cuisine American, Amish
Servings 14 Cookies
Calories 164 kcal

Ingredients
  

Soft Batch Maple Brown Sugar Cookies

  • ½ cup butter room temperature or dairy-free butter option
  • cup brown sugar
  • 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

Calories: 164kcalCarbohydrates: 19gProtein: 1gFat: 10gSaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 26mgSodium: 187mgPotassium: 93mgFiber: 1gSugar: 17gVitamin A: 304IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 46mgIron: 1mg
Keyword brown sugar cookies, christmas cookies, fall baking, fall desserts, maple, maple icing for cookies, maple syrup, soft cookies,, softest cookies, thanksgiving
Tried This Recipe?Let us know how it was by commenting below!

Mini Pumpkin Pies are always a hit too!

26 Comments

  1. Ok.. I made these just as the recipe calls for with the exception of adding a little maple extract to just give it a little more umph.. let me tell you these are not cookies..: these are little cloud cakes sent from the gods.. they are so soft and good.. they are on the really sweet side but they are a perfect “treat yo self” cookie.. I would suggest sharing with friends and family or else you might get diabetus haha… the only issue I had was with the dip I guess they were still a little warm or are just that soft I had a couple want to break but they didn’t.. really good recipe!

  2. i had to substitute applesauce for yogurt and brown sugar for white and they turned out delicious.

  3. Love this recipe! Just made it for the first time and I am not by any means an experienced baker. This was easy to follow and turned out so fluffy and just the right amount of sweet.

  4. I haven’t Soren. Baked unfrosted cookies will keep for up to 3 months stored in the freezer. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight and bring to room temperature before serving. Happy Holidays! xo

  5. Have you tried making the dough ahead of time then freezing it? I made these and they were a big hit but would like to have the ability to have it ready made ( mostly). Thanks

  6. These sound so dreamy! I love all things maple! (Including my dog, who is named Maple. 😀 ) I think a frosted cookie is like two desserts in one. Perfect! 🙂 ~Valentina

  7. I’m drooling over this recipe. So enticing. These’re gonna be a definite favorite of my kids and something they will be constantly craving. Great fall or winter cookies. And this maple icing is utterly amazing. Maybe I’ll use it with anything else. I like that no white sugar need apply. Brown sugar in any cookie recipe helps cookies stay much softer. I’d also like to use dark brown sugar, which is richer. Do you think it would work? Dying to try it and look forward to your new recipes!

  8. Aww..thank you Ben! I hope you do, they are delectable and addicting…they are relatively healthy minus the glaze, but a drizzle wouldn’t hurt. hehe

  9. Although spring is the time for collecting sap and turning it into maple syrup, we always consume it more in fall; somehow its flavour gives me those autumn vibes. So these are perfect cookies right now. I’ve made (relatively healthy) soft maple cookies with real apples, and now I should try applesauce. Look delicious!

  10. I’m so trying these! I can’t get enough maple OR soft, melty cookies!

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