Oatmeal Cookies with Cranberry and White Chocolate

These thick oatmeal cookies are my mom’s favorite. They have a delightfully crispy exterior and a slightly chewy interior – perfect for dunking in chai or coffee. Plus, they contain oats, which as everyone knows, is good for your health. So, you can pretend that these are healthy even though they contain butter, sugar, and other stuff 😉 To top it all off, they are scattered generously with dried cranberries and chunks of white chocolate. I mean, what more could you ask for in a cookie?

These cookies are so easy to make too. You start by creaming the butter and sugars together (I added a tiny bit of jaggery to deepen the colour of the cookies, but it’s fine to skip it if you don’t have it). Then, you mix in the egg, vanilla extract, baking soda and salt. Fold in the all purpose flour. Finally, add the oats, cranberries and white chocolate, and stir it all together. And the best part is, you don’t need an electric mixer to make these cookies. I usually just mix everything with a large wooden spoon – even the butter – because I don’t wanna have to wash another dish. Yep, I’m that lazy.

You can also customize these oatmeal cookies any way you like. You can replace the cranberries and white chocolate with basically any add-in. Chocolate chips, toffee bits, chopped almonds, raisins – the possibilities are endless. You can even make it more chewy or crispy if you want. For chewier cookies, all you have to do is reduce the baking time by 2 or 3 minutes. And vice versa – if you want the cookies to be crispier, increase the baking time by 2 or 3 minutes. It’s a great idea to do a test batch with just one or two cookies to figure our what your preference is.

Oatmeal Cranberry & White Chocolate Cookies

Recipe by NaziaCourse: DessertCuisine: ContinentalDifficulty: Easy

Makes

20

cookies

Prep time

5

minutes

Cooking time

18

minutes

Chilling time

15

minutes

Ingredients

• 115g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cold but softened

• 100g (1/2 cup) white sugar

• 1 tbsp powdered jaggery

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 132g (1 cup) all purpose flour

• 135g (1.5 cups) rolled oats

• 60g (1/2 cup) dried cranberries

• 90g (1/2 cup) white chocolate chunks (bar chopped into chunks)

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 175 C (350 F). Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and jaggery with a whisk or wooden spoon until smooth and creamy. If you’re doing it by hand, this would take around 3 minutes.
• Add the egg, vanilla extract, salt and baking soda. Mix well.
• Add the flour a little at a time and mix until fully incorporated.
• Fold in the oats, dried cranberries and white chocolate chunks. At this point, the dough will be very thick and slightly sticky.
• Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes or place it in the freezer for 10 minutes*.
• Grease your hands with a small amount of butter or oil. Roll 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of dough into a ball and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat for the rest of the dough, leaving about 2 inches space between each ball of dough*.
• Use a spatula to flatten the cookies slightly until they are about 3/4 inch tall*. They will spread slightly as they bake.
• Bake the cookies for 16 to 18 minutes*. The cookies are done when the tops are a light golden brown and the edges are slightly darker.
• Leave on the cookie sheet for about 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to continue cooling. When they are fully cooled down, store in an airtight container. They will remain fresh up to 3 days.

Notes

• Make sure the dough is always cold until you put it in the oven. Warm dough is a cookie’s worst enemy.
• If your cookie sheet is not large enough, you can bake the cookies in batches. Make sure to put the remainder of the dough in the refrigerator while one batch is baking.
• How much you flatten the dough in Step 8 will determine how crispy the cookies will be and how fast they will cook. The thinner you flatten them, the faster they will cook and the more crispy they will be.
• For chewier cookies, bake for around 13 to 14 minutes. For crispier cookies, bake for around 19 to 20 minutes.

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