Maple Walnut Cookies – Buttery cookies loaded with chopped walnuts and maple sugar make for soft cookies with a crisp edge. Perfect for the fall season!

Ooo ooo ooo! Now that October is here, it’s time for fall baking! While I would never judge you for starting your fall baking in September, for me, October just feels like the right time to bust out the canned pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and apples.

One fall flavor that doesn’t get enough love is maple syrup. It’s a wonderfully comforting flavor that just shines in baked goods. I used it in these Maple Pecan Scones last year and it just took them to another level.

This year, I wanted to use maple syrup in a new way – cookies. However, pure maple syrup has a subtle flavor that you wouldn’t be able to capture without using an insane amount. Therefore, maple syrup extract is usually the way to go to get all that maple flavor without destroying the chemistry in the baked good.

However, I wanted to go a different route and use maple sugar. Maple sugar is a fine granulated sugar derived from the sap of a maple tree. It has all the flavor of maple syrup but just in a sugar form. Therefore, I just used maple sugar in place of white granulated sugar.

But before we talk to much about the recipe, let’s drool over photos of these beautiful Maple Walnut Cookies!

Planning ahead

The process for making these cookies is sooooo simple. Very few ingredients and very few steps. However, these cookies can easily go very wrong if you don’t follow one very important rule: the dough MUST be made ahead of time to give it enough time to chill. If it doesn’t get super cold, the dough will spread too much and turn into a flat pancake. As such, I usually make the dough the night before I need it.

Making the dough

The process for making this dough is very similar to any other cookie dough. The sugar is creamed with the butter until fluffy. Then the egg is added, along with dry ingredients. Finally, the walnuts are mixed in.

The dough is placed on a sheet of plastic wrap, wrapped in the plastic, and then formed into a log. If the dough is firm enough, you can create hard edges on the log to form a square. If not, you can simply do this step once the dough has chilled.

Baking the cookies

Once the dough has chilled, it’s time to slice and bake. The log is sliced into individual cookies, placed on a baking sheet, and then baked to golden perfection.

Tips & Tricks

1. Maple sugar can be found at Whole Foods or other specialty food stores. I also found it on Amazon.
2. The dough must be chilled until almost solid to ensure the cookies don’t spread too much while baking.
3. Make sure the log of dough is of even width. This ensures that all your cookies will be the same size when slicing the dough.

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More recipes you’ll love:

Cinnamon Maple Lattes

Maple Pecan Scones

Butter Pecan Macarons