Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Cranberry-White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies {Recipe}

These oatmeal cookies made me a very popular spouse at my husband's office.
They take an extra step or two, to toast and grind some oats, but they're very worth it.

What You Need:
3 1/2 cups flour*
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup vegetable shortening**
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs (large), at room temperature
1 Tbsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cups toasted quick or rolled oats
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 cup white chocolate chips
Optional: 1 1/2 cups walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

Notes:
*You can substitute 1 cup ground oatmeal for 1 cup of white flour if you want to.
** I like to use half butter and half shortening to help keep these cookies softer. You can use all butter, if you wish, just know that they'll be a little crispier.

Yield: about 6 dozen 2-3" round cookies

Toast the Oats & Nuts:
Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Spread oats on a large, rimmed baking sheet. Toast the oats for about 6-9 minutes, stirring with a spatula halfway through. Oats will become golden and fragrant when they are ready.
Toasting oats takes maybe an extra 10-15 minutes when you factor in the cool-down time, but it's SO worth it. It makes everything made with oats taste that much better.

When the oats are toasted, toast your nuts the same way. Place them on a rimmed baking sheet, and cook them at 350-degrees for about 5-7 minutes until they darken a little and become more fragrant. Again, toasting the nuts makes them taste ten times better. It's worth every one of the extra 10 minutes time.

* If you want to substitute some ground oats for some of your white flour, toast about 1 1/4 cup of extra oats to equal a cup of ground oats. Take the toasted, cooled oats, and grind them fine in a cleaned coffee grinder.


In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, ground oats (if you're using it), baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg.
In the mixing bowl, cream together the butter, shortening and both sugars.
Add the eggs and vanilla. Mix until creamy and smooth.
Add half of the flour mixture, mix until all flour is incorporated.
Add remaining flour mixture, mix until incorporated.
Add oats, nuts, white chocolate chips and cranberries. Mix until evenly distributed.

Refrigerate dough for 20-30 minutes to help keep the cookies from spreading too thin in the oven.
Using a cookie scoop, or a Tablespoon, drop cookies onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake at 350-degrees for 8-12 minutes. You don't want these to get crispy or very golden. They should be just done when you take them out of the oven.


This dough freezes very well. Because the batch is very large, I often divide it in half, wrap half of the dough in plastic wrap, then foil and freeze it. Bringing it back to room temperature before baking more cookies another time.

Click the Links Below to See:
More Cookie Recipes and Ideas
Monster Cookie Recipe (Peanut Butter, M&Ms & Oats)
Peanut Butter- Chocolate Chip Cookies (with oats)

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1 comment:

  1. These look lovely! Just my kind of flavours! Will definitely be trying this recipe! xxx

    ReplyDelete

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