White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Big fat white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies!  The name pretty much has it covered — thick cookies with slightly crisped exteriors and soft chewy center, loaded with sweet white chocolate chips and dried cranberries and made with pulverized oats.  These cookies have the best texture, and their flavor is unforgettable! 

Zach asked me to make this recipe for him a while ago after tasting them at a work lunch.

I dutifully wrote down all of the cookie qualities that he asked for: cranberries, white chocolate, soft and chewy interiors, and oats, but without an overwhelmingly “oaty” (!?) texture.  I then proceeded to skip right on past that recipe request for the next year and a half.

Yup, a year and a half.

You’d think that with all of the baking that I do every day my very own husband wouldn’t need to wait 545 days or so for such a simple request, but here we are, and when I told him that I’d finally made these white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies for him, he had literally no idea what I was even talking about.

Fortunately, that didn’t stop him from inhaling a dozen of them still warm (and commenting that they would be great with some nuts added, which were definitely not on the original request list!).

Most of the qualities that he had requested were easy enough to match.  I started by making my favorite oatmeal cookies and added the cranberries and white chocolate chips, but I found that the texture was definitely too “oaty” (I spent a long time pondering over this word, and have resolved to now leave myself better notes moving forward).

I wanted chewier cookies that complemented the abundance of add-ins that are included here without competing against them.  I like a cookie with texture, but my first few batches were definitely too much and almost seemed like I was biting into a granola bar rather than a cookie.

I finally found the perfect way to include oats by pulverizing them in my food processor for a few seconds before stirring them into the dough.

This gave the cookies a perfect texture — you won’t want to process them to pure powder, but add them to your food processor and just pulse for about five seconds until they’re mostly broken up (finer than instant oats, but not completely pulverized, see the picture above).

Make sure that you chill this cookie dough before baking.  Chilling will keep your cookies from spreading too thin, I like to chill them and then bake on 375 (as opposed to 350, which is the temperature I use for many of my cookies) for thick, fat cookies.

Chilling also gives the flavors a bit of time to begin to really meld together, there’s a small amount of cinnamon sprinkled into the dough that gives these white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies a subtle spice.

Can I just say that I know I’m getting way ahead of myself right now, but I really think these would make great Christmas cookies.  Make them today, but make sure you save the recipe for the upcoming holidays, too!

Enjoy!

Just a heads-up that I’ll be going Live on my Facebook page at 12:00 EST tomorrow and would love it if you could join me!  Thank you to everyone who tuned in for last week’s Live where I had my special guest, Andi — I’m hoping I can convince her to help me again this week!

White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Big fat white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies! 

4.95 from 20 votes

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Servings: 30 cookies

Calories: 186kcal

Author: Sam Merritt

Ingredients

• ▢ 2 ½ cups old fashioned rolled oats measure before processing in food processor (200g)
• ▢ 1 cup butter softened to room temperature (216g)
• ▢ 1 cup light brown sugar tightly packed (200g)
• ▢ ¼ cup sugar (50g)
• ▢ 2 large eggs
• ▢ 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour (218g)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon cornstarch cornflour in UK
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ¾ teaspoon salt
• ▢ ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ▢ 1 ¼ cup premium white chocolate chips (212g)
• ▢ 1 ¼ cup dried cranberries or Craisins (200g)

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Instructions

• Place your oats in a food processor and pulse about 5-10 seconds.  Set aside.
• Beat butter in the bowl of a stand mixer (or using an electric beater) for about 30 seconds. Add sugars and beat until light and fluffy (pause to scrape down sides and bottom of bowl, if needed).  
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined.
• Stir in vanilla extract
• In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
• Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture until completely combined. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl so ingredients are well-mixed.
• Gradually stir in oats until completely combined. Add white chocolate chips and cranberries and stir well.
• Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 375F (190C) and prepare cookie sheets by lining with parchment paper.
• Drop cookie by rounded 2 Tablespoon-sized ball onto parchment paper, spacing at least 2" apart.
• Bake on 375F for 10-12 minutes or until edges are lightly golden brown (centers may still seem slightly underbaked, they'll finish cooking as they cool on the cookie sheet)
• Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet before serving and enjoying.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 186kcal | Carbohydrates: 24g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 29mg | Sodium: 162mg | Potassium: 69mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 13g | Vitamin A: 207IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 29mg | Iron: 1mg

Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.

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