Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies

Are you sick of all my cookie recipes yet?  I hope not, because I still have a few more for you!  Around the Holidays I tend to focus on making cookies, especially drop cookies since I bring cookie plates to parties and like to gift out cookie plates or bags of cookies to friends and family.

I was searching for a recipe for Cranberry White Chocolate Oatmeal cookies and I stumbled upon this recipe for Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies.  I thought I would use this recipe, add some white chocolate chips, and hopefully have an amazing cookie.  Although I left out the white chocolate in the end, these cookies are still tasty and a refreshing change from the mint chocolate and peanut butter cookies I've been making.

I didn't have a zester when I made this recipe, so instead I use a mini cheese grater to get the zest off of citrus and it seems to work just fine.  I actually like that I get larger pieces of the zest since it gives the cookies a unique appearance.  

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 tablespoon grated orange zest

1 teaspoon orange extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until smooth. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla, orange zest and orange extract. 

Combine the flour, baking soda and cinnamon; stir into the butter mixture.

Stir in the oats and cranberries. 

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown. 

Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

After adding all of the ingredients, the dough already tasted too sweet to add the white chocolate chips.  If you're going to add white chocolate to your recipe, I would suggest to reduce the amount of sugar and reduce the amount of orange extract and zest because otherwise you might have too many strong flavors.  I'll continue to search for a cranberry white chocolate oatmeal recipe, but this cranberry orange cookie recipe is tasty and I recommend giving it a try to add to your cookie assortment! 

My cookies don't look as pretty as those featured on Allrecipes, but they did turn out tasty!