Cranberries + Macadamia Oatmeal Cookies

In the next few posts, I will be sharing a couple of my favourite cookies recipes, mostly the ones that I will make again and again and again for myself and my family. Today’s recipe is one of such; Oatmeal Cookies, except that today’s batch has some variation: Cranberries Oatmeal Cookies instead of the usual Raisins Oatmeal Cookies. The reason is simply because I ran out of raisins! LOL! Disclosure: I’m not the author of the original recipe. The original recipe was noted down by me many years back but I cannot remember where I got it from. The following recipe has been modified by me based on the original recipe.  

 

Makes about 50-60 pieces

Ingredients:

·       100 gm caster sugar

·       50 gm brown sugar

·       115 gm unsalted butter, softened

·       ½ tsp vanilla extract

·       1 egg (60gm)

·       110 gm plain flour

·       ½ tsp baking soda

·       ½ tsp cinnamon powder

·       ¼ tsp sea salt

·       180 gm raw rolled oats¹ (for this particular entry, I used baby oats. See note at the end for my review)

·       100 gm dried cranberries

·       100 gm chopped macadamia nuts 

I love eating these oatmeal cookies, knowing that compared to most cookies, these are full of healthy goodness!

 

Butter and sugars are creamed till light and fluffy

 

The dough will be stiff after all the ingredients are added in

 

Method:

1.     Preheat oven to 190^°C (fan on).

2.     Cream the sugars and butter till light and fluffy.

3.     Add vanilla extract and lightly beaten egg and mix well.

4.     Sift flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt into the butter mixture. Fold lightly to distribute the flour mixture.

5.     Add oats, raisins and nuts and fold in. I usually use my Kenwood stand mixer at the lowest speed, with paddle attachment, to fold this as the mixture will be very stiff and folding by hand might be tedious.

6.     Using a cookie scoop (size 70), drop dough on lined baking trays.  Flatten² the dough balls with a spatula.

7.     Bake at 190°C for about 9 minutes. Monitor closely towards the end.

8.     Cool the cookies on the trays for about 1-2 minutes before transferring to cooling racks to cool off totally. Cookies will harden further and turn crispier upon total cooling.

 

 Notes:

1.     I usually use raw rolled oats for my oatmeal cookies but this time round I decided to try baby oats, thinking that the more broken up oats might give me a “softer” cookie compared to regular oats. It’s a big mistake: In fact the baby oats seem to absorb moisture more hence it gives me a drier dough. Nevertheless, it still yields yummy cookies but the regular oats give me even yummier cookies!

2.     As mentioned, baby oats will give me a drier and hence stiffer dough so when using baby oats, you have to flatten the uncooked dough on the tray as it will not spread much during baking. I didn't realise that until the cookies were baked, that's why you see the round round cookies here. LOL! On the other hand if you are using raw rolled oats, the spread will be quite a lot during baking. In fact I think I will skip the flattening the next round I make this with regular rolled oats.