A Triple Dose of Apple Jacks: Apple Cinnamon Cereal Snickerdoodles

As I was in the cereal aisle at the grocery store looking for some Rice Krispies to make Sarah Kieffer's Scotcharoos, I noticed that all Kellogg's cereals were on sale, including Apple Jacks. It reminded me that I had an Apple Jacks recipe on my to-bake list -- "Apple Cinnamon Cereal Snickerdoodles" from The Cookie Collection. These cookies have a triple dose of cereal: there are ground Apple Jacks in the batter; the cookies are rolled in a mixture of cinnamon amd ground cereal before baking; and they are topped with a glaze made from cereal-infused milk.

To make the batter, you beat softened butter and sugar until fluffy; add an egg and vanilla bean paste; and add the dry ingredients (flour, ground Apple Jacks, cinnamon, baking soda, and cream of tartar). I noticed that the cookies don't include any salt, I figured that this must be because of the salt content in the cereal. When I was a kid, Apple Jacks were all orangey-pink in color, with small red flecks. Now they also include bright green rings that are the same strange color as cheap mint-chocolate chip ice cream. When you grind the orange and green cereal together, the resulting powder is a weird muddy color that is not very attractive. If you're not using the entire box of cereal, I might suggest picking out the orange cereal and using that only for this recipe (at least in my box, there was substantially more orange cereal than green cereal anyway), just to get a brighter colored cereal dust.

You scoop out the dough (I used a #24 scoop and got 13 cookies from a batch), coat each cookie in a mixture of cinnamon and more ground Apple Jacks, and bake. After the cookies are cool, you drizzle on a glaze made from powdered sugar and cereal-infused milk.

The glaze set firm, so the cookies were easy to handle. To me, these cookies tasted like slightly unusual snickerdoodles. There was definitely something a little different about the flavor (maybe it was a slightly more intense cinnamon flavor?), but if you didn't know that there were Apple Jacks in the cookies, I think that it would be very difficult to identify them as an ingredient. They tasted fine, but I can't say that they were an improvement over a traditional snickerdoodle.

I really loved Apple Jacks as a kid and I was happy to eat the cereal I had left over after making the cookies. I don't know if it's the fact that it's been decades since I last ate Apple Jacks, or if the cereal recipe has changed, but the cereal didn't taste like I remembered. The only flavor I was getting was cinnamon, and I didn't particularly enjoy it. (My favorite cinnamon cereal -- both as a kid and an adult --- is Cinnamon Life.) I'm glad I gave this recipe a try, but unless someone really wants a cookie specifically made with Apple Jacks, I don't think that I'll be making these again.

 

Recipe: "Apple Cinnamon Cereal Snickerdoodles" from The Cookie Collection, recipe available here from Bake From Scratch.