Caramel Cinnamon Apple FAIL cookies

This week's recipe is the worst kind of fail: a great tasting, horrible looking fail. The taste is amazing but the rest just disapoints. I wanted to make a caramel apple cinnamon cookie but everything out there was an apple cookie dipped in caramel. Now I know why.

I found a vegan recipe that looked promising and made it back into something, I hoped would be, fit for human consumption. Unfortunately the recipe doesn't call for nearly enough leavening and the results are....well, they're visible below. Adding insult to injury I ran out of parchment paper and was left with bare cookie sheets, which further aggravated a bad situation. Adding to that are the thermal properties of caramel and I begin to understand why caramel is dipped or added after baking.

In short, everything turns into a gooey catch-22: if you take the cookies from the pan straight away without letter them set the caramel is too melty but if you let it set for a few minutes (or longer, or in the refrigerator) then the caramel bonds like epoxy to the pan. I even tried to salvage the remaining batter (after I had cemented apple chunks with caramel mortar to every cookie sheet I had) by making mini muffins. Again, I hit the caramel catch-22.

I'm posting the recipe as a challenge to someone with more talent than I to fix it. I'm pretty sure it's a baking soda/powder thing because all the other ingredients are right. Also, maybe freeze the caramel chunks so they don't melt as fast. Input is appreciated.



Ingredients

Cinnamon Apples

• 2 Fuji apples, diced (depends on size of your apples.)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 generous tablespoons brown sugar

Cookie Batter

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2 cups + 5 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 7 or 8 caramel candies, cut into small chunks

Directions

1. Prepare the cinnamon apples: Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the apples, sugar, and cinnamon. Cook until apples are tender. Let cool before adding to dough, this step is critical.
2. Prepare cookies: Preheat oven to 350
   
3. Beat sugars, butter, vanilla, and egg with flat beater at medium power.
4. Sift in the dry ingredients and beat.
5. Mix in the cinnamon apples and caramel (you want enough so that there are apple pieces in each cookie. you might need more apples or fewer) , and drop dough by VERY SMALL tablespoons onto parchment paper. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until done. Let cool.