Cookies with Caramlized Apple Pieces

I got such a cute cookie book as a present recently and I've bookmarked lots of recipes in it. I wanted to try these caramlized apple cookies first and let me tell you, they are heavenly... When I took them out of the oven this afternoon, their wonderful warm smell spread in my apartment and the golden evening sunlight lit up my kitchen... These cookies were the perfect happy ending to my weekend!

Recipe
(slightly adapted from: les cookies de Laura Todd)

for the caramelized apple:
70g butter
70g brown sugar
2 apples

Put the butter and the sugar into a large frying pan and let caramelize. Meanwhile, peel the two apples and cut them into small dices (5mm). When the sugar begins to caramelize, put the apple dices into the frying pan too and mix. When the apples dices are covered with caramel, spread on a silicone mat or parchement paper and separate them well. Let cool.

for the cookies:
350g brown sugar
1/2 sachet vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
250g butter, room temperature
1 egg
375g flour
a pinch of salt
1/2 sachet baking powder

Preheat the oven to 140°C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

In a bowl, beat butter and sugar with a hand mixer. Add the egg and mix well. In another bowl, mix flour, vanilla sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking powder and add this to the butter-sugar-egg-mixture. I first beat it with the hand mixer, then added the apple dices and then kneaded it by hand. When the apple dices are well incorporated, take an ice cream-scooper and scoop out mounds of dough. The original recipe suggests that you form the dough mounds first and then press a few apple pieces into each cookie by hand, I decided to just mix it all before forming the cookies, Place them onto the baking tray and flatten them a little bit with your hand. Bake for about 20-25 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.